


Analog

by Workparty



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26518396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Workparty/pseuds/Workparty
Summary: Life was complicated for Danny, but Vlad's desire for a son was about to make it a whole lot worse. After all, how can you figure out your life when "you" aren't even the only one living it? Originally published for October 2017 and expanded in 2020, it's a 7-part anthology that will have you seeing double!
Comments: 28
Kudos: 20





	1. analog

**analog  
**_adj_. in which the value of an object is represented by a continuously variable quantity.  
_n._ something that is analogous or similar to something else; similar in appearance.

* * *

It was like the rumble of thunder.

When he was younger he used to love storms. The rain, the howl of the wind, the flash of lightning and the crash of thunder; his early fascination with the power of nature was probably what lead him to his love of astronomy. It also set him apart from his sister, Jazz, who had been rendered inconsolable by a particularly violent storm early in life and continued to hate them well into her childhood. Danny, in his youngest days, never understood why she would be afraid of something so awesome.

He could understand that kind of fear now. The rumbling was far too close for his comfort, and it sounded worse than he had ever heard before.

...It didn't even sound that much like thunder.

The din was pierced by a scream of pain that sounded far too much like his own, and his eyes shot open as purple ectoplasm shot inches in front of his face. He had somehow fallen asleep upright like he was on the Shuttle or something. Fallen asleep, or... Was he in a lab?

Was he strapped into some stupid metal tube in a lab?

Danny groaned in exasperation. "Oh man, what has that fruitloop done now...?"

The question had been directed at the ceiling, and he had hardly expected it to answer, but answer it did. A very familiar syrupy voice chimed happily, "Containment units overheating, dearest heart! Releasing pods, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon! Failure in coolant couplings 6, 12, and 20, sweetums."

He had just finished wondering what his mom was doing in what was _presumably_ Wisconsin when the hermetic hiss of a breaking seal sounded, and the glass in front of him swung open. The next thing he knew, the straps released, and he was dumped in an undignified heap in front of the pod.

"Danny!" The voice came from across the lab. The ghostly teen shook himself off and flew up to meet his 'cousin' Danielle. She threw herself at him in a hug before backing away, eyes full of hope, to ask, "Did you beat Vlad? Can we get out of here now?"

Danny just looked back at her in confusion. "Uh, what? Was I fighting Vlad?"

"Should I just call him Plasmius? They're the same person."

"I know they're the same person, Dani, it's just that I don't remember how I got here."

"Oh jeez, did he hit you in the head? You've been fighting him for like ten minutes cuz!" She motioned around the room, which was indeed Vlad's lab; or at least, what was left of it. Warning lights were flashing in every corner and most of the equipment was smoking or sparking, if not upended and on fire.

"Are you sure? I just woke up in some kind of tube thing..."

A look of panic crossed her expression, but any further conversation was interrupted when the ceiling collapsed, followed shortly by Vlad in ghost-form and... Danny Phantom.

He looked exactly like Danny, right down to the black and white jumpsuit. It was eerie to say the least, watching... Himself, or at least a very convincing copy, pummeling Vlad into the rubble until ectoplasm splattered out of the man's broken nose.

The clone didn't stop his assault until after an unconscious Plasmius reverted back to a very disheveled Vlad. Still breathing heavily, the copy stood up, bracing his hands on his knees on the ascent, before wiping the back of a filth-covered glove across his forehead in a vain attempt to remove the sweat and ghostly blood covering it.

"Danny?" Dani asked again, far more cautiously this time. The clone below them turned around, the victorious smile draining from his face as soon as he saw the original Danny was with her.

"Watch out Dani, it's one of Vlad's clones!" the clone shouted, charging up another ectoblast and taking to the air. Danny dodged it with a yelp, before firing back one of his own.

"Dani, it's the evil clone trying to trick you! Don't believe it!" Danny had turned to face Danielle, to make sure she heard his urgent warning. She was only looking back and forth between the two ghostly twins, looking increasingly like cornered prey. "Danielle? Come on, I won't let him hurt you, you're saf— Oof!"

The next thing he knew, Danny was on the floor, the clone slowly descending from above him, a fist wreathed in spectral flames held aloft. "Nice try, but I'm the one who actually fought Vlad while you were in your cloning vat."

" _Containment_ _unit_ ," he replied, rising to his feet and raising a fist of his own, _"_ The computer didn't say anything about it being a cloning tank or whatever. I was just in there to hold me back from kicking Vlad's butt myself."

The clone blinked. "You hate Vlad too?"

Danny nodded. "Of course I do. The guy's a crazed-up fruitloop."

The fight visibly left the clone, who lowered his fists and floated over toward Danielle carefully. "Hey, were there any other clones in on the scheme to trick me into coming here, or was it just you?"

She shook her head, before addressing them both. "Nope. Not that I saw anyway. If you both say you hate Vlad, it's probably true."

Clone-Danny seemed to consider that for a moment before turning back to Danny, who lowered his fists. He wouldn't fight his copy if he didn't need to. "OK, so I'll believe that you're on my side here. But you're going to need to realize who the clones are here."

Danny scoffed. "Well obviously I know I'm real, so you two must be the clones. Not that it's a bad thing," he added hastily, attempting to placate the duplicate.

It didn't work. "Oh yeah? Do you even remember how you got here?"

"I—" Well, no, he didn't. He just remembered going to bed after fighting Skulker, then waking up in the pod. "Not really, but—"

" _I_ remember everything," the clone cut in, "I remember getting dragged in here, I remember Vlad taking a huge chunk of skin off my arm to get my DNA, the stupid brain scan, all of it. I remember slipping out of his restraints during his stupid bad-guy speech and then kicking his butt, and I know _I'm_ real!"

Danny was about to give a biting reply of his own when Danielle interjected. "Uh, Danny? Dannys? Where is Vlad anyway?" She pointed to the spot where Vlad had been lying unconscious, and where he was now nowhere to be found.

"Questions compounding questions!" Vlad's smug voice sounded from near the portal, his hand above a conspicuous red button. "Yes, this is all quite a mystery to you, I'm sure. Such a shame you'll never find out the answers. Taa!" With a small wave with his other hand, he pressed the button. Predictably, the computerized voice of their collective mother made one last announcement.

"Initiating self-destruct sequence, my cuddly cheese curd! Laboratory will detonate in 15 seconds."

"That son of a-!" Danielle fired a quick ectoblast at the portal as her 'father' retreated through it; the gateway closed behind him, and the plasma bounced harmlessly off the blast doors. There was a fire in her eyes when she rounded on the other two. "Truce?"

Danny and his clone looked at each other, evaluating carefully, before looking back to Danielle. "Yeah, OK." "Truce."

She nodded, "Alright! Now let's get out of here."

* * *

As it happened, it had not been Vlad's Wisconsin lab; the explosion itself was almost enough to propel the trio half of the way back home. Aside from the ringing in their ears and the receding wail of firetruck sirens, the remaining 5 minutes of flight was spent in uncomfortable silence, until they landed in the front entryway to Fentonworks.

The clone was the first to speak. "The house seems empty, I think we've got some time to figure this out... What are we going to tell my mom and dad?"

Danny bristled at that. "You mean _my_ mom and dad."

Clone-Danny frowned. "We agreed that we all hated Vlad, not that you weren't a clone."

"Look, you said Vlad took a chunk out of you, right? On your arm?" The clone nodded. "Well, then there'd still be a mark there, right?"

The clone rolled his eyes, before removing one of his gloves. "Of course, there's no way it'd heal that fast. Look—" He pulled back his sleeve.

The skin was spotless. Unblemished.

"Wait, what?" A confused look dawned on the clone's face before he frantically ripped off his other glove and pulled back that sleeve in turn. There was no mark to be found. "I don't understand, where's the scar? The cut? It's..."

"It's not there," Danny said as gently as he could.

The clone met Danny's eyes, a growing look of devastation on his face. Danielle laid a comforting hand on his shoulder until he found his voice again. "What... What are we going to do?"

Danny sighed and slumped down onto the bottom step on the staircase. His parents would need to know. The idea was terrifying. It wasn't that he thought his parents would hate him for what he was, although there was some small part of him that worried about that... But they had seen every threat ever made on his half-life. Half of them had been televised, after all. Would they try to stop him from saving people? Danny quite enjoyed his status as the town's protector. It was hard to imagine losing that.

He looked at the two clones eyeing him carefully. There was also their lives to consider, now. Would his parents not just accept him, but them as well? They had nowhere else to go, and Danny couldn't abandon what were basically another two siblings, even if they had been brought into the world in an unusual way.

"We're going to have to tell them the truth. The whole truth."

"What?! Are you crazy? I've been... _You've_ been hiding 'Phantom' from them for half a year!"

Danny stood abruptly, walking over to his clones. "There are some things more important than my secret. _Our_ secret, now. If I want my parents to accept me for who I am... I'd be a hypocrite to not accept you. Both of you," he added, giving Danielle a small smile.

"I... Don't know what to say."

"Just say you'll stand by me for this."

"I think he means he didn't expect you to be so cool about this. It really means a lot to me, cuz," Dani said.

Danny winked down at her. "I know. But I'm looking forward to getting to hang out with two people who will actually laugh at my jokes."

A crack of laughter and a small hug later, the trio broke up just in time for a key to jiggle in the front door's lock. Danny smiled. "Sounds like mom and dad are home now." He transformed back into human form, the other two following his lead. "Ready for the big reveal?"

The other two nodded back at him. The door cracked open.

"Hey Mom and Dad, I have something to—"

Danny swallowed his words. The door swung open, and he was looking at the surprised face of Danny Fenton, flanked on either side by Tucker Foley and Sam Manson.

With wide eyes and a trembling hand, Danny grabbed his own sleeve and pulled it back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to, as I described it 3 years ago, a loose anthology centered around Danny and his clones; now lightly touched up and republished on AO3. While I have always been largely satisfied with the quality of "Analog", there may be some few small tweaks made to the chapters as necessary. After all, few things stay constant over 3 years, the perceptions of an author perhaps least of all.
> 
> Enjoy!


	2. alternate

**alternate  
**_v._ a signal or electric current in which the amplitude reverses periodically, such as sawtooth, sinusoidal or square wave current.  
_adj._ succeeding by turns; one following the other in succession of time or place.

* * *

Danny Fenton hunted ghosts.

It was considered Casper High's worst-kept secret. If you asked him who the Revenant really was underneath those goggles and white jumpsuit, chances are you'd get some stupid excuse. I mean, there were a few other students who looked kind of like Danny _and_ this ghost hunter, right? But nobody was using that as an excuse to accuse him of being on the basketball team. Besides, having a secret identity would be ridiculous. If he just wanted to hunt ghosts he'd be working with his parents.

Or at least that's what he would tell you, but it was pretty clear the two were connected. Danny Fenton was always showing up late to class, or he'd urgently have to leave in the middle of a period; he probably took as many trips to the "bathroom" in a week as some people took in a year. Danny almost always seemed tired, too. He'd fall asleep in particularly long lectures or in the middle of educational videos when the lights went out. Meanwhile, this Revenant guy had a habit of being around right after Danny had left. He fought ghosts at all hours, day and night, and captured them with what looked _suspiciously_ like Fentonworks gear.

And besides, you can't hide who you are just by throwing on different clothes. It was way too obvious.

* * *

Danny Phantom was a ghost.

As a ghost, he could fly. To be fair, there were a fair number of teenagers who seemed to do that, although most of them rode hoverboards. Danny Phantom, on the other hand, could do corkscrews around the Revenant or the Red Huntress. With a cocky smile and a witty joke, he'd swoop down out of nowhere, fight other ghosts intruding on what most people assumed was "his" haunt, and disappear as quickly as he came.

Public opinion was divided, to say the least. He stood accused of attacking the mayor, taking part in a major string of jewelry heists and bank robberies, and a break-in at Axion Labs to name just a few. Besides that, every time he fought other ghosts, there was usually collateral damage. At this point, there were some streets in Amity Park that were more patches and potholes than pavement. Keen observers even noticed that when Phantom had started showing up more and more frequently, Danny Fenton took up the mantle of Revenant; clearly, the Fentons viewed the ghost as a threat.

Still... He did protect people. Nobody had ever died on his watch, no matter how dangerous the opponent. But being the spirit of a dead person did little to win over the PTA crowd. Some contended that he seemed far too life-like to be _just another ghost_ , but they were in the minority, and few took them too seriously.

It was a ridiculous notion. One couldn't be alive and dead at the same time.

* * *

It was a bright October day, some two months after Danny Fenton began hunting ghosts. "Revenant" had been out trying to corral a herd of unruly ectopuses until 4 in the morning, and Danny found himself on his second late-slip of the day by lunchtime.

Sam and Tucker found him at a quiet outdoor table sleeping face-first in a pile of corn.

"Man, Danny must be really hungry."

Sam rolled her eyes. "Pretty sure he's just asleep again." She dropped her tray onto the table right next to him, where it landed with a loud clattering sound. When he didn't stir, she sighed, before calling out, "Oh no, it's a horrible ghost! Whoever will save us?"

Danny snapped to attention, blinking kernels out of his eyes. "Wassat? Where's the ghost?"

"Dude. This isn't healthy." Tucker sat down across from him. "You fell asleep in your lunch. And it's not even good lunch."

"Yeah, well, I was out... I mean, _Revenant_ was out late last night, and uh... I'm tired for a really good, unrelated reason."

"We literally all know it's you, Fenton," a redhead called out from the table next to theirs. "You can skip the stupid excuses."

With a frown, Danny leaned forward and continued at a lower volume. "If there isn't _really_ a ghost I might actually try to get some shut-eye. I still have like half the day to get through..."

Sam peeked over his shoulder, pointing skyward. "Well, actually..."

Danny buried his face in his hands, groaning, as Tucker spoke up between mouthfuls of pizza. "It's only Technus, why don't you just leave him to Phantom?"

That earned him a glare. Danny pushed his tray away and stood tall over the table. "Times have changed, guys. We can't trust ghosts to solve our problems anymore." (That earned a shout of "You tell 'em, Rev!" from a passerby) "I'm going to go take care of him. _Both_ of them if I need to."

As the hunter ran off to find a secluded space to change and deploy his hoverboard, Danny Phantom flew high over the school, hot on the tail of the ghostly madman.

"Come on Technus, what's the plan this time?" The wind whipped at Danny's hair as he easily kept pace with the slower ghost, grinning toothily. "Are you gonna take over an appliance store? I can see it now!" he flipped over onto his back, still flying forward, and gesturing as if unveiling a headline. " _Attack of The Blender Banshee!_ No, wait, _The Stovetop Specter Scare!_ That's got a nice ring to it, right?"

Technus frowned, trying to out fly Danny who in turn lazily barrel-rolled to the upright position above Technus. "Try as you might with your goading ghost child, I, Technus 3.5, will never reveal my plans to you!"

"3.5 already! Did I miss Technus 3.11 For Workgroups? Or was it _Wraith_ groups?"

A green bolt of energy forced the pair of ghosts to split up, Danny falling back slightly with a yelp.

Danny, disguised as Revenant, faced down the ghost with his name. "Your puns are only getting worse, Phantom."

Phantom's good humor darkened at the new arrival. "Oh good, you again."

Technus slowed, looking over the new situation with some surprise. "Stereo ghost childs? That's interesting. Very interesting!"

Danny pointed a thumb at the more immediately hostile of the two ghosts. "So what's his plan?"

Phantom shrugged. "Hasn't told me. Must be something boring like taking over an appliance store, I guess."

"Again?"

"Hey!" Technus gave an indignant shout, "my plan is not boring! Today, I will assume control of the human Space Command, and rule the very galaxy! It is the most hip and trendy plan I've had since 1982!"

Phantom cracked another broad grin, even in spite of the hunter present. "Hey, thanks! I was wondering what crazy scheme you cooked up this time."

"Drat!" Realizing he had lost the element of surprise and was outnumbered to boot, Technus quickly shot off, heading off toward the hills surrounding Amity Park.

Smug grin still firmly in place, Phantom struck off after him, only to be jerked back suddenly by the tug of a fishing line. At the other end, Danny was busily reeling in the Fenton Fisher, dragging the ghost closer to him. "Great work ghost," he shouted across the gap, "Technus realized he had spilled his plan and shot off to put it into action. If you'd kept your mouth shut for 10 seconds I'd have him in the thermos."

Phantom looked unimpressed. "Yeah? Well, great work hero, while you were busy fly-fishing the two of us have completely lost sight of him."

"Maybe I don't trust you following behind me, ghost."

"Behind _you_? Do you think the crowd wants to see who can out fly who here?" Phantom asked, pointing at the rapidly growing group of spectators gathering just below them.

"Do you think _they_ want to know where _you_ really came from?"

The ghost narrowed his eyes at Danny. "Only if you think they want to know the _whole story_."

Danny took the threat as it was intended, given that a sizable crowd was within earshot below. "...Fine. Truce?"

Plucking the hook from his jumpsuit, the specter nodded and a white glove clasped black. "Truce."

The pair caught sight of Technus over the suburban hinterlands of Polter Heights, where the ghost seemed to be searching for something. Danny and Phantom finally caught up with him, attacking as one.

Danny shot an ecto-suppression disk at Technus' back as Phantom fired a particularly large orb of ecto-energy; the two managed to collide in mid-air, sailing over the target's shoulder.

"What?! Where did that come from...?" The ghost spun around to face his attackers. "The ghost childs again. Here to interrupt my search, I bet. Oh, wait..." Technus seemed to notice something behind the Dannys, his face lighting up as he recognized what he was seeing. "Say, that's exactly what I've been looking for! Thank you!"

As he shot by underneath the pair, Danny shot Phantom a glare, which was returned in kind.

They followed him to the State University grounds, where he flew straight for the science annex. He dipped easily through a wall, causing Danny to glide to a stop. He would need to enter through one of the doors, although all the ones on the near side of the building were suddenly clogged with fleeing students. With a dramatic sigh, Phantom grabbed him by the arm. "Come on, 'Revenant'..."

Danny kicked and struggled as intangibility washed over him for the first time in a while. "Gah! What the..." His words were suddenly cut off as they passed through brickwork, before an abrupt return to corporeality on the other side. He glared at the ghost once more, hovering carefully above the student body below. "You could warn a guy next time."

"Yeah, well, you could warn me before you fire one of the only things that can deflect _my_ attacks."

"Me? _Your_ attack deflected my weaponry! And now... Look, there's no time for this. I have no idea what 'Space Command' is, but we've gotta find where in the heck Technus flew off to."

The ghost pointed simply, one eyebrow quirked. "We could always follow where the students are running from?"

"Nice idea, but that hallway is way too cramped to fly through."

"Then consider this your warning!" With a wicked grin, Phantom flew straight at the hunter and pushed him intangibly over (and occasionally through) the heads of the people below.

Soon, they were at the most deserted part of the building. Danny retracted his hoverboard while Phantom landed on two tangible feet. The space around them, ironically, was a planetarium; the seats were arranged in circles around a central apparatus that was currently projecting an image of the night sky onto the domed ceiling. Dancing sparks and the arcing pops of electricity alerted them to Technus' presence at the far side of the room, where a bank of electronic equipment and computers sat partially disassembled and hastily reconnected to the ghost's robotic body.

"Eureka! I've done it!"

"Dang it, are we too late...?"

Phantom shook his head. "Not a chance. We've got this, Dan- Uh, Revenant."

Technus cackled when he finally noticed their presence. "Actually, you are far too late! I now have _complete control_ over this Space Command computer device! Now I just need to figure out how to... Work it... Aha! My reign begins _now!_ "

The room glowed a faint green as his spectral energy ran along every wire and conduit, and the emergency lighting first turning on and then off again as the bulbs flared and exploded in their casings. "Fear me! Technus _4.0_ and the might of... What does this servo do..."

After a moment of darkness, the lights of the planetarium projector turned on, and the stars shifted to display the night sky in the southern hemisphere.

"Wait, no, that's not the right control... _Now_ fear me!"

The stars rotated through a night's worth of motion before a simulated sun rose.

Phantom nearly burst out laughing. "Technus... You had no idea what 'Space Command' was before you got here, did you?"

Danny shook his head, adding, "I'm pretty sure it's just a fancy name for their projector software."

"I... Curses! At least you will never _capture_ me, for Technus _4.0_ is—"

Phantom turned to face Danny. "Ready, Revenant?"

With a nod, Danny pulled his goggles off his face, mirthful blue eyes meeting green. "Go ahead, Phantom."

The ghost reached his arms into Technus' jury-rigged computer setup, literally dragging the ghost out of the audio-visual equipment. With a toss, and against the elder ghost's objections, Danny capably and quickly sucked him into a Fenton Thermos, prematurely ending his "reign".

Phantom flew over to Danny, stopping short of the exit door. "Might want to goggle up, we've got company." Some of the braver onlookers were already leaning into the doorway, surveying the carnage. As Danny quickly readjusted his disguise, the ghost teen clapped him on the shoulder on his way out. "Amazing what we can do when we work together, isn't it?"

Danny looked down at the thermos, turning it over in his hand. He was inclined to agree.

* * *

Danny Fenton was finally getting to bed on time.

Danny Phantom was just as tired, if not slightly more so.

And so, Phantom found himself in the bedroom of the youngest Fenton as the human walked in, pajama-clad, and still smelling of toothpaste. In spite of his public-facing alter-ego, Danny didn't seem particularly surprised to see the ghostly hero sitting on the window sill, leaning against the wall.

"They bought it," Phantom simply said, hopping off his perch. As he approached, he handed Danny a copy of the Amity Herald's evening edition; the actual headline of the night read **The Halloween Truce? Local Ghost and Ghost Hunter** **Collaborating.** The picture underneath showed Revenant and Phantom clasping hands earlier that day.

'Revenant' eyed it with some interest. "Well, good. As long as we keep putting on a show they'll never suspect a thing."

"How long have we been doing this?"

Danny shrugged. "Well, it was August when we destroyed Vlad's cloning lab, so about two months?"

"No, no..." The ghost sighed, slumping down onto the bed. "I mean, how long have we been doing _this_ specifically?" he asked, gesturing between the two of them.

"Oh! I see. I guess about 10 days now. You want to switch?"

" _Ohgodyes._ " The reply spoke of immediate relief.

With a wry grin, Danny Fenton pumped two fists in the air. "Goin' ghost!"

A pair of white rings washed over his body, and soon Danny Phantom was sitting on a bed looking at his duplicate. With a tired smile, he silently performed the opposite transformation, turning into a very human Danny Fenton, and immediately falling over into the warmth of the sheets. "Thanks, Danny."

"Hey, anything to mess with the fruitloop, right? Have a good sleep, Danny." With a wink, the ghost shot out the window, ready for a night's mischief.

Because obviously, you could never hide who you were just by changing your clothing. And _one_ secret identity might be ridiculous, but almost nobody thought to look for two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to Analog. I initially had a joke planned for this note along the lines of "Was the twist obvious in advance? Partial marks if you read the story before and had forgotten about it in the years since." Although after releasing chapter one, the first comment that was left was indeed a former reader who (very kindly) remembered this anthology from its original publication. Oh well.
> 
> It may be obvious, but I will mention; the entries in this anthology are all separate, self-contained universes. They are linked by theme only, specifically the themes of "cloning" and "tortured polysemy".


	3. phase

**phase  
**_n._ **1** a state of synchronicity; the property by which a signal is in step with others. **2** a period in which a person behaves in a new fashion, associated with experimentation and growth.

* * *

Who was she?

It was a question more relevant to her than perhaps most teens who asked themselves the question. In most cases, they would have been raised through a childhood, experienced years of cruelty and kindness, countless moments of small joys and discoveries, and come out the other side of that first decade, perhaps bruised, but wiser.

She, on the other hand, had been alive for three weeks, two days, sixteen hours, and roughly 45 minutes. Roughly.

Even in so little time as that, things had been chaotic. The first face she had seen had cold, calculating eyes; searching eyes, probing eyes, but certainly not loving eyes. She had been willing to look past that for the sake of belonging, that essential feeling of connection, but instead, she only found herself even more firmly on the outside of her father's life. Far away from him, lying to the only other person who she had ever known.

Asked to spy, to coerce, and ultimately attack.

The final betrayal was not hers, however. Clearly, he had never really cared for her, she was simply a means to an end. In her darker moments, she had speculated that even when he had found the cure for the clones' instability, once he had saved his "prime clone"... Would he even bother to save her? Was she meant to be single-use, a disposable person like the other "lesser" beings?

The creak of a door. She twitched instinctively, adrenaline rushing, fight-or-flight mode activated.

"Danielle?"

She sat up in bed to face the voice in the doorway. Danny. Her... Cousin? Brother? Father? Progenitor? "...yeah? What's up?"

"Just wanted to check in. You know, to see if you were comfortable." He rubbed the back of his neck; she could only see his silhouette in the light of the hallway, but she knew he had an awkward half-frown. She knew this because she would have, too. The look of a fish out of water.

"I'm fine, just... Not used to the bed."

"Heh. Yeah, I guess it must be a big change from the—" He stopped in the middle of the thought and tried to start a new one. "Well... Try to get some sleep. We've got a big day tomorrow." A slight pause, where she had nothing to add. "...I'm right across the hall if you need anything. Good night, Dani."

"Yeah. You too." She smiled a small smile. He returned it and closed the door behind him, leaving her in almost complete darkness.

Danielle wouldn't dwell on _him_ anymore. She was with people who cared now. Really cared. With Vlad, everything was transactional. There was always that coldness she had to choose to ignore. Here there was only warmth. It had taken some... "convincing", on Danny's part for the Fenton parents to think that she was an estranged relative, but once the overshadowing was out of the way she was accepted with open arms. With Vlad, she had to ignore his faults and hope he knew best. With the Fentons, she had people to look up to.

Danny most of all. And looking up to him, she realized, she had a lot of measuring up to do.

* * *

More than a few second glances landed on Dani and Danny the next day. Danny usually got his fair share to start with since he usually looked tired and disheveled. A girl who looked to be 11 or 12 years old attending high school might have earned a few looks, too. But the fact that Dani followed him as closely as his shadow (and bore more of a resemblance besides) had people whispering in hushed tones that were fully audible across the hallway.

Dani stuck by his side for every class that morning; she seemed to have the same general knowledge as Danny, and while that may not have been saying all that much, with some light coercion of Principal Ishiyama she had been successfully placed in the same grade. After three introductions by teachers and three identical recitations of the rehearsed backstory for Danielle, word had gotten around and interest died out. By lunch, Danny, Sam, and Tucker had regained their status as largely-ignored social outcasts, now plus one. Not that Sam or Tucker minded the addition, especially since it meant they now had somebody else to talk to in Danny's absence.

"So Dani, how's the first day going?" Sam had split a salad with the younger Fenton, after the contents of her lunch bag had growled at her.

Dani shrugged, poking at a cherry tomato. "Not bad, I guess. This school stuff is kind of boring, I dunno how Danny puts up with it. Especially when we could just..."

"...fly out the nearest ceiling or something?"

The younger girl smiled. "Yeah. Or something."

"Well, we could do something after school today. We never did get a chance to thank you for saving us from being grounded forever." Tucker sat across the table from her, eating his meatloaf with unusual restraint. "How about the Nasty Burger?"

"... _Tucker_ , you always suggest the Nasty Burger."

"And I've yet to be disappointed, _Sam_!"

Dani set her fork down when she realized she had absentmindedly picked and prodded a tomato into a pulp. "Will Danny be there?"

Tucker blinked, apparently trying to process an answer other than _'absolutely yes let's go get cheeseburgers'_. "I dunno, probably?"

"You could ask him yourself." Sam pointed over Dani's shoulder with a plastic knife. Following the cutlery, she looked over her shoulder and saw her... Well, Danny, half-jogging through the lunchroom doors, sweating and winded. After a quick scan of the room, he made his way over to their table and sat down next to Dani.

"Hey, guys. Hoo..." He caught his breath for a moment, before smiling. "Skulker was _not_ looking to make things easy today. But I got him! You should have seen it, he tried hitting me with those stupid ghost-seeking missiles, so I flew underground, and when the missiles lost my signature they spun around and hit him square in the jaw!"

The explanation had been accompanied by some wild hand gestures that had Dani entranced. Sam just raised an eyebrow before pointing back toward the door, at a windswept and slightly dusty Valerie Grey who was just returning to the cafeteria herself. "You had a little help from Val the Impaler, huh?"

If either Fenton heard that jibe, they gave no sign of it. "So, whatcha talking about?"

"We were going to take Dani out to the Nasty Burger after school."

"Oh, cool. That should be fun." Danny started in on a sandwich he had packed. It also growled up at him, but he didn't seem to mind as much. "It'll be your first time outside in public, practically, won't it?"

He had directed the question at Danielle, who ignored it. "Are you going to come with us?"

"We-ell..." Her heart sank a bit. "I'd like to, but I kind of have to help Dad build a new specter speeder. He's trying to build one that 'goes 50% better', still not really sure what he meant by that... You should totally go without me though, it'll be fun!"

"Oh..." The tomato was finally speared on the fork. "OK..."

"Hey, chin up Dani, everybody likes the Nasty Burger!" Tucker beamed down at her as they walked down the sidewalk, the golden afternoon light of late autumn sunshine leading the way off the school grounds. She didn't reply.

"To be clear, not _everyone_ likes Nasty Burger," Sam made a bit of a face while saying the name, which perhaps proved her point, "but I promise we're at least as fun as Danny."

"Some would say even funner," Tucker added sagely.

"More fun," Sam corrected.

"Yeah, that's what I said. Anyway, just wait until you try their ice cream. They have this new peanut butter/fudge shake that's supposed to be good. And Sam's buying!" With a grin, Tucker ran ahead of them, sailing past the flagpole at the restaurant's front door.

"...hey, wait, what? Maybe for Dani, but not you, you dork!" Sam called after him, giving chase.

Dani jogged to keep up, trying to stay positive. They were Danny's friends, so she would probably like them too. Right?

* * *

The trio sat in a back booth nursing three tall frosty milkshakes. Tucker had gone for the peanut butter and fudge (four of them and counting, in fact), while Sam opted for a vegan kale soy-shake. Dani had ordered Danny's usual, mint strawberry, and was sipping it slowly. It tasted a lot weirder than she had thought it would.

Tucker and Sam sat across from her and made every effort to include her in their conversations. Danielle just wasn't feeling all that talkative. Eventually, they lapsed into an easy silence that didn't seem to bother the other two, but Dani was constantly worrying was awkward.

When she couldn't quite stand it anymore, she finally spoke up of her own volition.

"So, um—"

An explosion sounded from across the street, a car erupting into a green fireball. Danny Phantom surged out of the wreck, eyes set in determination, before rising to meet the descending form of Skulker. The conversation between the two ghosts was lost through the sound of screaming within the restaurant. The adults in the restaurant had scattered almost immediately; the teenagers, either oblivious to their own mortality, or perhaps just a little bit used to this kind of thing, largely just picked up their trays and moved to tables on the far side of the restaurant.

When Dani looked back at her dining companions, she saw they had both grabbed their backpacks. Tucker was already out of the booth and on his way to the door, which left her facing Sam directly. The girl put a hand on her shoulder. Dani didn't flinch.

"Danny is probably going to need our help," and looking past Sam, Dani could see Danny take off in terror as Skulker shot another salvo of missiles, "but we'll be right back. Just stay here, alright? Stay inside, and stay safe."

Assuming she would cooperate, Sam followed Tucker out of the building, and the last Dani saw of her was a short ponytail disappearing around the corner of the building.

The entire exchange had taken perhaps a minute, and Dani now sat alone.

Five minutes later, she was starting to get bored.

Ten minutes later, she had managed to drink about half the milkshake, staring gloomily at the unwanted portion, stirring it idly with her straw.

A tray dropping onto the table with a thud brought her out of her reverie.

"So you're Danny Fenton's cousin, Danielle."

It came out half as a question, half as a statement of fact. It was being asked/stated by a tall, curvy girl with dark hair and shockingly green eyes. A white and red polo with its prominent letter "N" identified her as an employee.

Her name tag identified her as "Val the Impaler", as Sam had called her.

"Geez, relax kid, you look like a deer in headlights." Valerie sat down before starting in on her fries, offering one to Dani. After a pause, she took the fry. The trepidation actually made Valerie chuckle. "Don't look so spooked, I'm not going to hurt you or anything. So what, you're new in town and eating alone?"

"Oh, I um... Well, I was here with Sam Manson and Tucker Foley, but they had to... They'll be back, it's just there was that thing. And they left for a moment."

Valerie nodded slowly. "Uh huh. ...Not used to ghost attacks, are you?"

"What? No! Why do you ask?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to give you the third degree. You just seemed uncomfortable." In saying that, Val made no obvious movement toward leaving.

There was another moment of silence. Valerie looked at her expectantly, and only broke the silence when it became clear Dani wasn't going to.

"You never did answer my question."

"Um, which...?"

"You're Danny's cousin."

The younger girl temporarily forgot she was sitting across from a deadly, dangerous hunter. She furrowed her brows and shot back, "That wasn't really a question, was it?"

Another short chuckle. "I think I like you. I meant, are you 'Danielle', or what do I call you?"

"Oh." She shuffled in her seat. "Dani. With an I."

"Doesn't that ever get confusing back home? Don't your aunt and uncle say, like, 'Hey Danni, pass me that ecto-sprocket-configurator,' or whatever, 'and Dany can you turn down the flux capacitor' and you both have no idea who they were talking to?"

Dani giggled at the imitation of Jack's blustery voice. Val smiled triumphantly.

"Hey, got you to laugh! You should do it more often." Val wiped off her hands with a napkin, balling it up and throwing it back onto the tray while Dani recomposed herself. "So, how long as you going to be staying with Danny, anyway?"

"Not much longer."

Both girls turned sharply to face the voice, which had come from thin air next to them. The smug form of Vlad Plasmius faded into visibility, grabbing Danielle before she could phase away.

It didn't stop her from kicking and trying to wriggle out of his grip, even as the much larger ghost carried her through the roof and high above the concrete jungle below. "Come now, child, why are you fighting me? I'm going to take you home!"

Danielle was about to tell him exactly what she thought of that plan when a purple ray shot in front of Plasmius, who had to swerve violently to miss it. She didn't scream. She didn't flinch. She even remembered to keep trying to escape his grasp. A real hero wouldn't give up, wouldn't show any weaknesses.

The Red Huntress looked very heroic, flying toward Vlad on her hoverboard, decked out in her ghost-hunting suit. "You aren't taking her anywhere, ghost. Now put her down and I'll shoot."

Vlad scoffed, one arm around Dani's neck and apparently oblivious to her continued flailing. "I believe you mean 'or' you'll shoot, my dear."

With narrowed eyes, the hunter spat back, "No, I didn't." A well-placed shot to Vlad's gut caught him by surprise, and with a yelp of pain, he dropped Danielle.

She didn't manage to not scream. But she did remember she could fly, swapping to her ghost form on the descent, and turning back toward Vlad with a look of pure venom. The venom drained almost instantly as she looked at Valerie Grey, who had been flying down to catch her, whose expression morphed first from worry, then to shock, and then to anger. Before either girl said anything, another purple ray of energy hit Valerie in the back.

Vlad looked pissed.

"Out of my way, pawn!" He clutched at Dani protectively, aiming another shot at Val, who only just managed not to fall straight off her board. "We're leaving, and if I ever see you near my daughter again, I swear—!"

Dani screwed her eyes up in concentration. It took more energy than she should be using. She felt her molecules loosen, which was as uncomfortable as always. But she had more of Danny's tricks up her sleeve than Vlad gave her credit for. "I am _**not your daughter!**_ " Her shouts reverberated through the air. It wasn't as powerful as Danny's ghostly wail, and really only stunned Vlad for a moment, but it was good enough.

Plasmius shook himself off and reared up for another attack, although the sound of rocket engines made him hesitate.

"Hey ghost, I heard you guys liked missiles!" Dani could nearly _hear_ the smirk in Valerie's voice as the ghost-targeting missiles flew forth from under her hoverboard, forcing a less-than-strategic retreat.

Which was just as well, because Dani could have sworn gravity felt stronger than normal all of a sudden.

* * *

When she came to, she was lying on the roof of the Nasty Burger. Valerie was standing over her. Suddenly, Sam's nickname for her seemed far more appropriate.

"So."

Words spewed forth without Dani really intending for them to escape. "He was lying! I'm not his daughter, I swear! It's just... There was this lab, and I got rescued, and Danny— The thing is, he and I... He's not my cousin, and Plasmius wanted a perfect child, and— _Why are you laughing?_ "

Valerie chuckled and reached a hand down. Hesitantly, Dani took it and was hefted back onto her feet. "Come on kid, it's obvious."

"...it is?"

To her further confusion, Val actually retracted her suit. Black and red were replaced once again with a plain, harmless uniform. "Yeah, that stupid Plasmius thing wanted a sidekick, so it tried to clone Phantom, but you turned out to be half-human and went to Amity Park's ghost experts for help." She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, even though the explanation sounded ridiculous.

No more ridiculous than the truth, she supposed. "Uh, yeah. That's exactly how it happened." She transformed back into Dani Fenton, while nodding vigorously. "Although um... Could you not mention this to anyone? At all? Ever?"

"'course not, can you imagine how freaked out people would be if there were half-human ghosts running around saving people? Besides, you know my secret, so my lips are sealed as long as yours are." While Dani tried to find words of gratitude, Valerie checked her watch, then groaned. "Damn, I'm late getting back from lunch." She heaved open a hatch on the roof and lowered herself onto the ladder. She paused a few rungs down.

"You know, you're more than where you came from, Dani. Remember that."

* * *

She thought a lot about that for some time. Sunset found her sitting on the back step, which is where Danny found her as well. "Hey, Dani! Sam and Tucker said sorry for having to bail, they said you were gone when they got back."

Danielle shrugged. "It's no big deal."

Danny took a seat next to her. The concrete was cold, although neither half-ghost needed to worry about that. "So what did you think of 'a day in the life'?" he asked jokingly.

With a sigh, she leaned back. "I don't think it's for me."

"...wait, what? Really?"

"...yeah." Dani stood suddenly and took a few steps into the back yard. "I've been thinking about some advice I got. And, it's been really nice of you and your parents to let me stay here... But, I'm not you, Danny."

He looked very confused. "Uh, I know. I'm me. Are you feeling OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks. My molecules are still screaming at me, but 'sides from that..." She rolled her eyes. "I can't live your life. It's like... If I tried to live out Vlad's weird fruitloopy plans for me. Less evil, but still, it's not _me_. I can't just live other people's lives. There's something out there that _I'm_ supposed to be, you know?"

"I think I might get what you mean. So... Who are you?" Danny had a playful glimmer in his eyes as he said it.

"...I think I'm going to go try to find that out." With a flash of light, Dani Phantom lifted off from the Fentons' backyard, but she paused before taking flight. "Thanks again, really. Everything you've done for me... I wouldn't have gotten this far without you. Literally."

"It's no problem. Just don't be a stranger, OK?"

"Don't worry... You'll see me again!"

She took off into the twilight sky, and for the first time in her life... She didn't care about her past, or her short life. Now she had a future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to Analog. This week, a hopefully tolerable quantity of Dani, the character sometimes regarded as the Scrappy Doo of the show. I (obviously) find the character interesting, if under- or poorly-used.
> 
> At the time at which this story was first released I was quite proud to have made an emotional arc for the anthology, rising from unease to intrigue, with peak warm fuzzies in this chapter, before a descent back to unease in chapter 5. I do not know if that was actually a good assessment. That may have more to do with the fact that I was never entirely happy with how this chapter came together, although I am equally unsure what I would change, structurally.


	4. signal

****signal  
**** _v._ to indicate, show, or otherwise make known thoughts and intentions.  
 _n._ an electrical or electromagnetic action meant to convey information.

* * *

It was all a little _too_ convincing.

Any human wanting to catch a glimpse of the mansion's expansive backyard would have to run across at least 50 yards of open grass to even get to the tall privacy hedge; even then, the foliage was just a front to cover up the tall stone walls topped with wrought iron spikes. And that's if you weren't caught on one of the many, many, _many_ CCTV cameras facing outward in every direction, and escorted off the premises by security faster than you could say "fondue".

And behind it all, the two were just tossing a football back and forth. The Phantom clone even laughed when he just barely caught one of Vlad-as-Plasmius' harder throws. They were both all smiles.

Danny was entirely sure that they knew he was watching, and they were acting accordingly. It had to be, otherwise, they would have had to just keep this up all the time on the off chance he was watching. Although they didn't spend all their time outdoors, so perhaps that would have been a cheaper failsafe than he thought.

It was kind of hard to put himself in their minds, after all. He wasn't a paranoid crazy person.

Danny sighed and lowered himself out of the tree he had wedged himself in to spy on them, slinging the binoculars around his neck as he went. The sun was setting, and he'd been in Wisconsin for almost the whole day. He'd need to leave back for Amity Park soon or he'd be a zombie in school the next day.

It had been three weeks already. Why didn't they just make their move?

* * *

"Losing sleep again, huh Danny? …Danny? **Danny!** "

"Bwuh-? Imawake, wuswrong?"

Sam seemed deeply unimpressed with that response. "Did you get any sleep last night, like, at _all_?"

"Mmhm… Sleep…" Danny was in serious danger of falling asleep in his seat again until a slight shove jolted him out of his stupor. "Sorry… Yeah, I must've slept like… 3 hours? 2, at least."

Tucker shook his head sadly. "All that sleep deprivation, and it's not even being used for video games."

"I'll be fine, I just need my coffee… Where did I put my coffee?"

"Right here, you dork." Sam leaned over toward Danny's desk and pushed the white disposable cup more directly in front of him. He took it gratefully and took a swig like a man dying of thirst; the coffee was burbling behind the plastic lid as it struggled to let enough air through for how quickly the liquid was being drained. "You do realize what you're doing is crazy and paranoid, right?"

Danny sighed deeply and reluctantly set the cup back down. "I'm not crazy. And it's not paranoia when they really are up to something, I just don't know what it is yet."

"Or," Tucker chimed in, "maybe Vlad really is happy with his new clone-heir and you're worrying for literally no reason? Come on, they're not even in this _state_ , what could possibly go wrong?"

"Serious answer?" Danny jabbed the lid with a pen, widening the optimistically-undersized air hole. "How about I get kidnapped again and Vlad tries to replace me with a clone? Or maybe the fruitloop wants to make half-ghost/half-human clones and he kills me trying to figure out how that works?" He downed the remainder of the coffee in a few gulps, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and tossing the cup into the trash bin across the room. "Until I've gotten to the bottom of this, I'm not stopping."

* * *

True to his word, the next weekend he was back, lying as inconspicuously as possible across a bough of a tree closer than ever before to the Masters' expansive estate. Unfortunately, Danny had forgotten his binoculars at Fentonworks, necessitating a change from his normal hiding spot, in a sturdy oak some distance away.

It wouldn't have been a problem if he'd paid more attention to the strength of his chosen replacement tree. But that was only obvious in retrospect, staring up from the ground at the remaining branches, met by the unimpressed faces of Danny Phantom and Vlad Plasmius staring back down at him.

"Hello, Daniel."

"...hi, Vlad."

"Nice of you to drop in!"

Danny groaned inwardly at his clone's awful pun. Either his sense of humor didn't survive the cloning process unscathed, or he needed to be concerned. "Phantom."

"Still worried me and dad are up to no good? World domination or something?"

"Honestly my boy, I had taken you for an intelligent lad." A now human Vlad tutted at him, or at least his presumed motives. In actual fact, Danny _had_ been worried the two were plotting world domination, but he wasn't about to say that.

"I guess it's flattering? If we just want to talk about positives, I mean. That you think we could take over the world if we wanted to. Or had any reason to. Or if it was even possible to do, which I don't think it is," the clone mused aloud. Danny did his best to ignore him, preferring to concentrate on the dull, aching pain all over his body; when the clone reached a gloved hand down to help him up, he ignored that too, hefting himself up.

And then quite suddenly he was on the ground again, a very _sharp_ pain in his ankle demanding his full attention.

"Generally, it is inadvisable to stand on a sprained ankle, little badger." Vlad struggled to be heard over Danny's cursing but plowed on regardless. "It would be best for you to stay the night. I shall have a room prepared."

"Oh man, you're staying over? It'll be just like a sleepover!" Clone-Danny had a ridiculous grin plastered on his stupid face, as he pulled Danny up by the arm, slinging it over his shoulder. "I've always wanted to get to know you better! This'll be _so cool!_ "

Danny could hardly believe what he was hearing, and if he had any other option he would have already put a few zip codes between him and this kid. "You are officially the weirdest dude, you know that?"

The clone gave him a wry grin. "Well yeah, I'm a clone of **you** , what did you expect?"

* * *

The room he was in contained one bed, four end tables, one bureau, a broad writing desk and hutch, two plush sofas with a stout coffee table, a fireplace, one elegant vase, and a non-functioning mantel-clock rendered redundant and forgotten by a bright green LCD clock radio.

Danny knew this because he had carefully checked every single one of them. It had taken at least 45 minutes of hop-jumping around the room, but he had taken every single book off of every shelf, rifled through every drawer, opened every door, and checked under every surface. The room contained no microphones, cameras, motion detectors, deadfall traps, knock-out-gas delivery nozzles, and he was fairly sure there weren't any secret entrances.

He had just managed to hobble back to the bed and lay down, staring wide-awake up at the ceiling, when he was reminded that his clone didn't need a secret entrance to get in.

"Hiya Danny!" Danny yelped as his field of vision was abruptly filled with his clone's grinning face, having phased through the wall above his headboard, white hair and teeth gleaming right until he had to go intangible to avoid a punch.

With a chuckle, the ghost floated fully into the room before dropping down on the other side of the bed, sitting up on his arm to face Danny, who had just about managed to get his heart stop trying to beat out of his chest. "Never do that again, Phantom. You scared me half to death. Don't say it," he added quickly when Phantom moved to reply.

"Pfft, fine, Mr. Grouch. I just wanted to see if you were comfortable."

"You mean comfortable with the fact that I'm in the house of the guy who kidnapped me, speaking with the clone he created with the aid of a creepy hologram copy of my mom when he couldn't Stockholm-syndrome me into renouncing my dad and staying here to be his slave," he counted off one finger, "or do you mean 'comfortable' as in 'is the bed OK'?" and he raised the second.

The clone pouted. "Ok, first of all, that's kinda hurtful. And I meant the bed."

"It's fine, thanks. The pajamas Vlad has in my size and favorite brand are great and non-creepy too. Is that all?" Phantom just continued to look hurt at the implications. He seemed to be just on the cusp of leaping to Vlad's defense, and Danny preemptively rolled his eyes. "Come on, just spit it out so I can go back to not sleeping."

"Why do you hate me?" the clone blurted out.

A beat.

Another beat.

"...what?"

"I said, why do you hate me?" Phantom sat up more fully, sitting back on his boots. "You keep saying these awful things about me and dad, and I get that you two have had a little spat, but what did _I_ ever do to you?"

"You have a funny definition of 'little spat'," Danny said.

Phantom didn't seem impressed. "I'm not going to leave until you answer my question, Danny."

Danny frowned. "Look, I don't hate _you_. I just... When I'm talking to you, I'm basically just talking to Vlad, right? So—"

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"Well, uh... Don't take this the wrong way, but uh... Vlad programmed you, you know that right?"

"Programmed me." A questioning statement.

"Yeah, I mean, you have all the memories of a person, but you aren't really. Not like a full person anyway. You were just made by Vlad a couple of weeks ago, so how can I really be talking to 'you', as some kind of separate... Person. Thing." At the other's confused expression, he backpedaled slightly. "Which isn't to say you can't be a person someday! But right now you're probably more 'Vlad' than even you realize. No offense."

"You say that like there's a clear divide... But what if..." Phantom leaned in, green irises shining intensely in the darkened room, "What if _you_ were the real clone?"

Danny's mouth made all the correct motions to respond, but no sound came out. He shifted to sit upright, gaping like a fish until his voice finally returned to him. "You're kidding, right? There's just no way... Could there...?"

A look of some horror spread across his face before the other boy finally cracked, losing his composure. "Pfft... No, of course not. I'm all the clone anyone needs, and I don't really want any competition besides. ...but man, you should have seen your face!"

Danny threw a pillow at his head, and the specter ended up a cackling mess, nearly falling over with laughter. "Yeah, well, when you spend a year getting attacked by a fruitloop with a cloning lab you pretty quickly get used to second-guessing these things. Why else did you think I had put so much thought into all this?"

Phantom finally calmed himself down, although the smile remained fixed in place. "Sorry, I guess. But you're gonna have to learn how to relax sooner or later."

"I can't exactly 'relax' around Vlad, I don't know if you've noticed."

"Has he actually attacked you at all since I've been around? Attacked anyone?"

"Well... No, but it's only been 4 weeks. He's gone longer without trying anything in the past."

"But I'm telling you, dad hasn't been _plotting_ or anything. It's not like I haven't heard stories you know, of what you two have been through, but... He seriously just needed some human— Or, well, social contact. You know what I mean." The ghostly teen waved a hand dismissively. "Trust me, the man raising me? You don't need to worry about him anymore. Dad's turned over a whole new leaf."

Danny frowned. "That's the thing, I can't trust you. You're not... And seriously, don't take this personally, but as a month-old clone, are you even _human_ enough to know right from wrong?"

To his surprise, the clone lit up with a snap and a smile. Danny didn't much like that reaction, and he liked the proposal even less. "I bet I could prove you can trust me!"

"...you can what?"

"Remember when Tucker was talking about that guy who invented computers or whatever, and he invented a test to see if someone was a human or a machine?"

"Well, _I_ remember it..." Danny grumbled, but Phantom carried on regardless.

"A Turing test, that's what it was called! So you just ask me some questions, anything you like, and unless you think Vlad could have prepared me for _literally anything_ you can ask, that'll prove my case, right?"

The clone looked incredibly pleased with himself. Danny just groaned inwardly; he wasn't getting out of this without humoring the clone, so he might as well just try to dredge up the weird morality puzzles Jazz had spent the previous summer reading from her psychology textbook.

Danny shifted on the bed so he, too, was sitting upright; sleep was far from his mind by now. "Uh, OK... So, let's say there's a trolley—"

"What's a trolley?"

"...it's like a train that's also a bus. So there's a trolley that's hurtling down a track, and there's these five people tied down in front of it. You could pull a switch and redirect the trolley, but then it'll go onto a track where it'll kill this one dude. What do you do?"

"What did they do?"

"Sorry?"

"Why are they tied down in front of a train-bus? Is this some kind of cartoonish death penalty thing, and they're like murderers?"

"No, they're not murderers." Danny sighed, rubbing his temples, "Who they are isn't important. Or you don't know them anyway."

The clone scratched his chin for a moment but still answered quickly. "I'd have to pull the switch."

"Y'see, normal people can't answer that quickly, that's what's wrong with you."

"...what's wrong with _you_? The obvious answer is to pull the switch, and then you just have to save one guy from danger instead of five. Just phase the ropes off and fly him away."

Danny blinked. "OK, that's fair. But let's say you can't phase off the ropes. It's Fenton fishing line or something."

"Well, then I don't pull the switch at all—"

"That's still a pretty quick answer."

"—because if you can't phase the people out of the way, obviously you just turn the train intangible."

Phantom said it like it was so simple. Danny definitely hadn't come up with those answers when Jazz had asked him, but he kind of wished he had, now.

"I'll give you that one. I guess here's the real question... Let's say there's no more trolleys, or tied up people, but you're in some kind of situation where you can't escape from a fight. And it's not family, or Vlad, or whoever, just a total stranger; but you can flee and save yourself, and that person will die, or you can sacrifice yourself and save their life. What do you do then?"

"And I'll die?"

"Maybe."

"...and is that something you've had to answer?"

"...yeah." The fight against Pariah Dark was still far too fresh in his mind. He might have had trouble with this question himself, before he found out what his answer was.

Phantom was uncharacteristically silent. Eventually, the spectral teen just leaned back, head on the footboard, hands crossed over his chest. Time ticked on from seconds to a few minutes before he spoke again.

"I guess I'd have to do the same as you, in that situation. I would try to save them."

That was a surprising response. Surely Vlad had created his clone to preserve himself rather than save anybody other than Vlad...? Phantom must have been an expensive investment, after all.

"Really? Why's that?"

"Well..." The clone turned to face him and gave a small, awkward shrug, with his shoulders still pressing up against the board. "It's the right thing to do, isn't it?"

That seemed like a good sign, or so Danny thought.

Although he had some more questions now.

* * *

Sam and Tucker found Danny on Monday morning in his usual spot, fast asleep in his desk. He was dead to the world until Sam gave him a hard shake by the shoulder. "Come on Danny, tell me you weren't in Wisconsin all weekend again? This isn't healthy."

"Huh?" It took a moment for a sleepy Danny Fenton to process the question. "Oh, well... I _was_ in Wisconsin..."

Tucker groaned. "Come on dude, you can't seriously waste your time stalking Vlad and his weird clone-son. When are you going to relax?"

Danny thought back over the weekend at Vlad's castle. He and the clone had talked until Danny actually passed out from exhaustion but picked up again in the morning, and on until at least noon. By the end? He was left with a decidedly positive impression. Particularly after the two tore away for an hour (slowly, for the sake of Danny's tender ankle) to stop a ghost that had escaped into downtown Madison. If he had any reservations about Phantom's motivations after that, the rest of his extended visit put them to rest.

"Actually you guys, I think Wisconsin is in good hands." Danny smiled and took a small sip of his morning take-out coffee. "I think we can put that one to bed, after all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to Analog. At the time of writing this, I had actually just finished writing "alternate", the second chapter in this collection. I remarked in the author's note at the time that I did not necessarily want to become known for twist endings, and therefore "instead of writing some kind of double-twist, triple-fakeout-metatwist, or nonplanar-hyperplot-Brownian-fractaltwist ending, I thought it might not kill me to just write something straightforward. Just this once."
> 
> Hopefully, this actually does read "straightforward". I cannot have a fair assessment, as secretly this was always my favorite story in the collection.


	5. continuous

**continuous  
** _adj._ **1** without break, cessation, or interruption; without intervening time. **2** a function for which sufficiently small changes in the input result in similarly small changes in the output.

* * *

Danny Fenton was born at age 203.

He only lived to 64 years of age, but they were good years. Although his life was short, a car crash and a pair of broken legs told him it was time to move on; he already had a deficiency in his bone density thanks to a careless genetic error, and he might have had to walk with a cane for the rest of his natural life.

Surrounded by Sam, who a train derailment had left a teenager in her 25th decade, his parents, and his great-great-grandson (the only other relative who could make time for such a mundane occasion as a funeral), Danny Fenton took a pill and died.

Danny Fenton was born at age 251.

Or at least that was the plan.

* * *

"...honestly, no idea why he switched his cloning policy to Continuous Labs when we've _literally_ had centuries of good luck with the Digital Phoenix corporation. But you know Danny." A woman's voice. On the surface unfamiliar and annoyed about something, but familiar and friendly just below that.

"So he's really been out for the last 3 days now?" A man's voice, now. A bit incredulous. Mostly tired— No, not tired. Weary.

"With no telling when he'll wake up, yeah. The doctor said something about irregular brainwaves or something, but they're hoping it'll pass in a day or two. I guess we'll see."

"Mhmm."

The two strange voices broke into a pregnant silence. For his part, he had no idea where he was, or why everything was dark. From context alone, it was likely the voices were talking about him, although their words were entirely unfamiliar.

Come to think of it, _nothing_ was familiar. The feel of the bed beneath him, the clothes (gown?) he wore, the dull irritation deep within the skin on the back of his left hand, or the slight pinch on his right index finger. It was all so different.

Not that he had any reference to compare it to. Somehow this was all new, novel even, while still managing to feel different from... Nothing. Something. Anything, he guessed. Just... _Alien_.

He opened his eyes, and quite suddenly it became clear why things had been so dark a moment before. It was odd to have forgotten about eyelids. Though even once they were "open", they continued to shut intermittently. He wasn't really thinking about it, so much as letting it happen. Everything else he was doing at the moment was much the same; his heart beat, his lungs breathed, all without much effort or input on his behalf. Somehow that seemed unusual.

"Oh hey, you're awake!"

He turned to face the source of the words. It was the woman (girl?) he had been hearing just a moment before. Short. Clearly not yet 20 years of age. Black hair. Shining white teeth. Vivid purple eyes. Eyes that met his own, with a look of recognition he couldn't quite return.

"Uh, yeah." He coughed slightly. Talking came instinctually, but the vibrating felt odd in his throat. It felt like he had never properly done it before. Like he knew the moves without having practiced them. "I guess. Hello?"

She smiled broadly at him now. "Hello yourself, mister. Tucker managed to make it down for your wake-up call." She pointed to a tall, svelte man sitting in the chair next to his bed. He was on the higher end of middle-age with a slim-cut sports jacket to match, but from behind wire-framed glasses, his eyes sparkled with youth.

"Heya Danny, sorry I missed your funeral. How's #5 feeling so far?"

"...#5?"

"Or is this your sixth? I swear my memory is getting worse by the day."

"No, it's not the number, but the... You know, the fifth _what_ exactly?"

He got a confused look from the older man. "Do you not remember the car crash?"

"I don't remember anything. Who even are you people? While we're at it, where _am_ I?"

The look turned to dread, and the man turned to Sam who seemed to still be working through "confusion".

"Go get a doctor. Something's wrong. For Pete's sake, _quickly!_ " he added when she didn't move.

Danny's (for that was his name, he realized) eyes followed her out of the room, before flicking back to his other visitor. "You didn't really answer my question."

He got a gentle, somewhat condescending pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry too much man, we'll get this figured out."

A few seconds later, a woman in a white coat burst through the door, Sam in tow. She was on Danny in an instant, shining a penlight in both his eyes as if all the answers were written on the back of his pupils. Eventually, Danny had to look away from the blinding light, still uncomfortable enough with the room's ambient lighting. "Do you mind not shining that at me until you explain what the heck is going on here?"

With a frown, the doctor clicked the light off and slipped it back into her breast pocket. "Do you not know what is going on here?"

" _Of course I don't._ That's why I asked!"

"Sir, can you please tell me your name, and what you think today's date is?"

"Uh... Danny, I guess, and... I don't know, I just woke up. I haven't seen a calendar yet."

The frown deepened. "Oh dear."

"'Oh dear'? Not something we really wanted to hear, doc!" Sam sounded somewhere between panicked and pissed off. "What's going on with him?!"

"It seems like the implanted memories haven't taken yet. I've heard of it happening if there's a sodium/potassium imbalance at the chip's injection site, or if the surgeon misjudges the depth of injection... I just never thought I'd see a case of it happening myself."

"Please skip to the part where this gets solved."

"Or the part where somebody tells me what you're even talking about." Danny finally got a word in edgewise.

The doctor pulled the penlight from her pocket again, but rather than actually using it busied a hand spinning it between fingers. "This must seem very confusing to you, Mr. Fenton, but four days ago you died."

"Um. No, I can't have. I'm right here, and I'm still alive"

"Yes, of course, but that's the problem. You don't remember it."

" _Remember what?_ "

"Please, just remain calm." That was easy for her to say, Danny thought, on the edge of either hyperventilating or storming out of the room; he wasn't sure which. "Before your death, a perfect clone was prepared, with your memories to be implanted in it to provide continuity of existence. It's a standard procedure, everyone does it, and it's usually performed without error—"

" _Yeah_ , you can say that again." Sam finally chimed back in. Her jaw had been set in fury for the last minute, and even now a fire still blazed in her eyes. "I need to track down Danny's lawyer. I'll be back."

As she stormed out, the older man Danny had heard called 'Tucker' shifted uneasily. "I should probably go make sure she doesn't do anything... Uh... Rash." With a strangled smile, he looked back at Danny on his way out the door. "It's been... Good to see you again, Danny."

"You too, I guess?" He was still confused. Was he supposed to be someone else? As far as he knew, he'd only ever been him, and he hadn't even been that much for very long.

After a moment, the woman whose ID badge identified her as a "Dr. Angela" spoke up again. "I'm afraid there's really not much I can do for you today, Mr. Fenton. I'd like to keep you here overnight for monitoring, and we'll just have to hope for the best."

"...I'm not going to die, am I?"

"Oh, no, no no no. Not at all. We can try to resolve the issue with the implanted memories, though I'd rather not operate on somebody who has only just regained consciousness. Or perhaps it might fix itself. Either way, rest assured, we'll solve this inconvenience for you."

He shifted uneasily. "...that's, fine, I guess. But... Could you just... Not do that at all? I think I'd rather just be me, instead of... Whoever that was that died."

"Ah, I can't... Perhaps you should sleep on that, Mr. Fenton."

* * *

"I've missed you, for the past five days."

Danny was jerked out of his short nap by the voice. It had been a few hours since he had been left on his own, trying to sort out how he felt about being a dead 64-year-old. Or a 251-year-old. Neither of them felt right, although no more wrong than being an alive 16-year-old. Eventually, repeating thoughts gave way to a fretful rest.

But now she was back. Danny turned to face Sam Manson, the name coming unbidden to the front of his mind, sitting in the visitor's chair next to his bed. Twilight was burning the sky in the window behind her; he must have slept longer than he thought. He didn't give any reply to her statement. Apparently, she wasn't waiting for one.

"We've been through a lot together. Five days is about as long as we've been apart for... I guess about a decade now."

"...what happened a decade ago?"

There was a slight pang of loss on her face for just a moment before she replaced it with a wistful, crooked grin. "That was when you forgot about our anniversary and booked a trip to see the Voyageur probes. I didn't speak to you for a couple of days before you left and stayed back on Earth instead of going up with you." She laughed and shook her head a bit. "It seems so silly now... Especially when I woke up a week later because somebody was playing 'Johnny B. Goode' outside our house in the middle of the night. So I raced to the window and you were standing there in the grass, holding a speaker over your head like a massive dork. And then I find out that in the middle of the tour, you went intangible and flew out of the shuttle to 'borrow' the Golden Record from Voyageur 2. Because you have a weird, nerdy idea of romance."

He wasn't sure what to say to any of that.

She correctly read his look of confusion. "Did you remember you have ghost powers, or was that forgotten in the transition...?"

"Well, no..." He just wouldn't question that statement. This level of confusion required triage, and "ghost powers" were _somehow_ the least pressing thing on his mind. "But I guess I just thought I should remember some of that. Are we...?"

"Married." She held up her left hand and pointed out the ring. "37 continuous years, this most recent time, although something like 153 total. A few divorces were probably good for our relationship overall."

Danny nodded, still very unsure of what an appropriate response might be.

The two were silent for a while. He finally spoke, sometime after the sun had dipped below the horizon outside. "I'm sorry that he didn't come back."

Sam regarded him seriously. "You— He, still might, you know."

"...is it selfish to hope that he doesn't?"

"Actually, yes." Well, she was blunt, he had to give her that much. "He wanted to get on with his life, that's all."

"What about my life?"

"How do you mean?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Danny shifted in the hospital bed a bit to sit up a bit straighter. "I'm here. I'm alive. Maybe I want to do something of my own, something new, things I would never do if I found out that some past version of me had already done them. Is that so wrong? Maybe _I_ want to fall in love. Did you or him ever consider that?"

Laughter, however gentle, was not the reaction he had hoped for. "No. I guess we didn't. This... Hasn't really happened before, not to us anyway."

"Hasn't happened, or just happened so quickly you never noticed?"

Genuine shock and hurt was also not the reaction he had hoped for.

He sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. Just because I'm in kind of a shitty situation doesn't mean I should be taking it out on you. Especially since you love... Some version of me. I just really don't want to basically _die_ so somebody else can pick up where they left off."

"No, you have a point. Maybe it is selfish of the two of us to carry on so long. It's just that when you love somebody so much, when you've done so much and still have so much left to do... Goodbyes are hard, is all."

A few moments passed with only the hum of overhead lights to keep their thoughts company.

"It doesn't have to be goodbye, you know." Sam looked at him, questioningly. "I can see that you and he... We, had something. Even if I'm not quite the guy you remember... Would you want to try again?"

"I... Weren't you just talking about wanting to do your own thing?"

Danny shrugged. "If I don't remember it, it's still new to me. So why not see if I fall in love with you?"

"How romantic." The sarcasm matched her smile perfectly. He found his mind lingering on both. "'Hey, wanna see if you can fall in love with somebody who looks kinda like your dead husband?' What girl could refuse?"

He laughed. "Well, for whatever it's worth, I think I like you already. So... What do you say?"

"...I'd say I'm willing to figure this out as we go."

"In that case... Let's go home."

* * *

The sun rose on a new day.

Sam was busy in the kitchen. It was her Sunday morning ritual; wake up, stretch, and get out of bed. Jog down to the farmer's market and race the quadcopter delivery drone back. Set some green tea steeping in a French press, and prepare breakfast. Today, it was jellied soy topped with the papaya chutney Danny had made the weekend prior.

... _Had_ Danny made it? Danny was a different man now. Well, a different _person_ now. It was unclear if he could still be considered a "man" in a 16-year-old body, even if his birth certificate, like hers, was still dated over two hundred years ago. From just a day's exposure, she thought he seemed to think and act like the same old Danny, even if he didn't remember their years and years of shared history. It almost made their cohabitation seem... Immoral, somehow. Sam hadn't quite been able to stop thinking about it in the sleepless moments of the night prior. They may have both been physically the same age, but she certainly felt her chronological age; Danny most likely did not.

The steam rolled lazily out of the spout of the French press. No matter how long she stared at it, the twisting vapor didn't seem to have the easy answers she wanted any more than her bedroom ceiling had.

Maybe Danny had been right. Maybe she should try to just relax and see if they fell in love again. She was perfectly willing to take a second chance.

"Morning, Sam." She turned to see Danny smiling sweetly from the archway into the kitchen.

"Good morning yourself, mister. How are you feeling?" She returned the smile and handed him a plate.

"Fine, thanks. I slept great. Did Continuous Labs drop me off right at home, or did I just sleep through the day at the hospital?" She looked confused. He looked at the contents of the plate. "Hey, is this that papaya chutney I made...? Looks great!"

He smiled a toothy smile at her that she couldn't quite return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... Am still unclear how this happened. Why this was allowed to happen. Why nobody stopped me. It was a struggle to edit it effectively.
> 
> Regardless. This is the end of "Analog" as originally published in 2017. Among the jetsam of my original drafts I did find an interesting concept which I have been (slowly) reworking for publication here, as a thanks for sticking with this strange little collection. In particular thanks to DP_Marvel94 for the kind comments; this is almost certainly preaching to the choir, but for anybody who is unaware of it and interested in more stories about Danny talking to himself, I heartily recommend their story "Face to Face", available here and on FF.net.
> 
> But for now, thank you for reading. I hope to see you again soon.


	6. alias

**alias**

_n._ **1** a false or non-genuine signal generated as a technological artifact. **2** an assumed name or another identity.

* * *

Danny Fenton had officially spent the entire night trying to ignore the racket. He was wide awake when his 7 am alarm went off, and they were _still_ down in the lab; the usual sounds of machinery and the occasional explosion had been reverberating through the house for hours, making sleep almost impossible.

Not that he would have slept well if they had been quieter. There had been many strange noises that night, but the strangest by far had been the laughter.

Friendly, social laughter. Disarming laughter. Danny had found it intensely disturbing.

He heaved a sigh and struggled out from under the sheets. He had better start the day right if he was going to be dealing with... Whatever this was. Almost automatically, Danny made his way down the stairs into the kitchen and was soon blearily staring at the coffee machine willing the liquid to brew faster.

Another big laugh from the lab jerked him back to attention. He could hear footsteps coming up the stairs toward the door, so he quietly made his way to the far side of the room, sitting at the table as casually as possible. The door popped open and a face he wasn’t expecting, still smiling, came into view.

Danny narrowed his eyes. “ _You_.”

His clone jumped off the floor and spun bodily around to face Danny. His smile was replaced almost instantly with surprise and concern as he slowly landed again. “Uh, hi. Good morning?”

* * *

It had started the previous night.

Skulker's new weapon had done its job; the young ghost had chased the hunter halfway across the city before being shot with the blood blossom extract, forced into a hasty landing as his powers malfunctioned, before finally transforming back into Danny Fenton.

It had been a long walk home from the edge of Elmerton. About 2 miles into the 10-mile trip, Danny realized that had probably been part of the plan.

The next time he caught Skulker, he wouldn't be emptying the Thermos for a _week_.

When he did get back to Fentonworks, Danny had gone straight upstairs and spent the next 2 hours lying in bed plotting increasingly elaborate and unlikely revenge scenarios. The feeling had just about returned to his legs when his ghost sense went off. On the one hand, it was nice to know it still worked because it was the first sign of his powers he'd had since transforming, but the timing still couldn't be much worse. As he heard the ghost alarm go off in the basement, he was seriously considering leaving it to his parents when he saw the black and white streak by his window.

With a sigh, he unsteadily got back up on his feet and hobbled around the room collecting the ghost hunting equipment he had stashed at the back of drawers and under the furniture. His parents were quicker on the draw and were already driving the GAV out of the driveway by the time he got to the back door.

Checking the direction of the cloud of dust, he was again tempted to just go back inside, but from the sounds of a pitched ghost battle, it seemed like his final destination was close by.

Besides, he didn't want to leave _him_ around his parents. Danny had spent far too long trying to build up his good name to let Vlad's latest project destroy the tenuous Phantom-Fenton ceasefire. He still didn't know if he was going to come clean about being a half-ghost to his parents one day, but if he was ever going to, he needed to keep "Phantom's" rap sheet as short as possible.

And so he hobbled 5 blocks down a sketchy alleyway.

It was a fight that you heard and felt long before you saw it, which rarely worked out in Danny's favor; it left too much to the imagination, although by the time he rounded the final corner and saw the fight, most of his imagination's worst ideas turned out to be gratifyingly close to the mark.

The noise turned out to be coming from a local park that was nearly always empty. Here that worked out for the best, because from the tire marks and toppled trees, it was obvious his dad hadn't been able to stop the GAV as quickly as he thought he could. His parents had both taken up covered positions and were taking pot-shots at the specters high above them, who were almost completely ignoring the humans' presence.

High above the treetops, Vlad's latest cloning experiment was handily fighting Skulker, and (although it was impossible to be sure over the general din) to Danny's great horror it seemed as though his twin was attempting _banter_.

He had to be stopped. For the sake of good taste, as much as to protect the real Phantom's reputation.

Danny backtracked into the alley and hopped onto a dumpster, before pulling himself onto a brick walkup's fire escape. He took the stairs as quickly as tired legs would allow before arriving at the roof. When he got to the edge, he dropped to the tar paper to avoid being seen and clipped a night vision scope to the ecto-rifle that he'd liberated from the lab a few weeks prior.

In his hurry, he hadn't noticed that the clone was in the process of capturing Skulker in a Fenton Thermos. With the advantage of zoom, he could see the ghost say some dumb quip, spinning the thermos and clipping it to his belt like an old west gunslinger.

Danny frowned. Looking up from the scope, his parents had stopped shooting, and "Phantom" had their full attention. They even seemed to be trying to flag the ghost down from ground level; if Danny shot him _now_ , both of his parents would see it, and they'd have some serious questions for him when he got down to street level.

From his crouched position, he saw Phantom land next to the two hunters, and the trio... Talked.

No shots, no obvious hostility, they were just talking. Phantom occasionally gestured to the thermos or toward the GAV, and his parents occasionally supplying an explanatory hand gesture and eventually, holstering their weapons.

They talked until Danny's leg fell asleep and he had to change his low, stooping posture. His worry and disbelief mounted until the three all laughed at _something,_ and entered the GAV.

And then they drove away.

They must have been a few blocks gone before Danny's brain caught up with what had just happened.

His parents had talked to Phantom.

And then Phantom got in the GAV with his parents and they all drove away.

 _What_?

Taking the stairs two at a time, Danny ran down from the roof and all the way back to Fentonworks, the screaming protests of his leg muscles being roundly ignored thanks to the pounding of his heart and adrenaline.

The door wasn't locked when he got back. Weaponry had been hastily discarded on the kitchen table and the door to the lab was slightly ajar, the sounds of perfectly pleasant conversation floating up the stairs.

And then suddenly, approaching the top of the stairs.

Hastily kicking off his shoes, Danny ran as silently as he could to the living room, glancing as carefully as he could around the corner to see who was entering the kitchen.

He had expected anyone aside from Phantom.

Even adjusting his expectations to account for _that,_ the ghostly teen just grabbed the weapons from the table loosely in his arms and headed straight back for the stairs to the lab, but stopping just short of the door.

Green eyes and a quizzical expression glanced toward where Danny had been standing.

Before Danny had panicked, run across the room, and dove behind a couch. Barely daring to breathe, he sat quietly with his back to the wall as footsteps first entered the living room and paused for a moment. The steps came closer, and paused again, so close that Danny was sure anyone could have heard his heart doing its best to escape his chest cavity before they abruptly turned around and retreated from the room.

Not wanting to push his luck, he went straight upstairs to his bedroom, naively assured that his parents would take care of the clone before sunrise.

And yet here he stood.

In the middle of the kitchen.

Waiting for Danny to say something back to him.

* * *

Danny chose to ignore the ghost's question. “What are _you_ doing here?”

The ghost opened its mouth to reply when it was shoved forward by the door swinging open behind it, having to brace itself on the kitchen table to avoid falling flat on the ground. Jack Fenton thrust himself into the kitchen, looking panicked.

He gasped when he saw his son at the table. "Danny!" Both teens looked at him in response. "Sorry son, shoulda warned you! Phantom's here!"

The clone was quickly grabbed around the shoulders and pulled back to Jack's side in what the hunter probably considered a friendly gesture, but which also lifted the ghost several inches higher than it had been floating previously.

"The ghost kid is gonna help us from now on! We're letting bygones be gone, it's the start of a brave new millennium! Ghosts and humans, working side by side! Who woulda guessed! ...well c'mon ghost kid, say hello!"

Other Phantom smiled weakly and waved. "Hi, Danny."

Danny crossed his arms, giving the clone a hard look. "Dad, I don't think we should trust it this easily. We, uh, don't know what it's planning, right?"

The smile ran off the clone's face, but it seemed unsurprised. Jack, however, was. "What's with the change of heart, Dann-o?" He grabbed the ghost again, who had only just started to relax, giving it a light shake by the shoulders. "Phantom really does seem different from the others! We ran some tests on him this morning, and he did great on the empathy and higher reasoning tests! For a ghost anyway."

Other Phantom turned to face the hunter. "Thanks, I think?"

Danny hated that he was doing this, but attempted to stand his ground. "That doesn't mean we can _trust_ him though, does it? Even if he's smart, he doesn't think like uh... Humans do."

Jack's enthusiasm faltered for a moment, dropping the ghost again, who chose to float a few inches away this time. With a snap, his dad lit up again. "I've got it! We'll just need to make sure he gets introduced to human society! Tour him around, introduce him to human customs, show him where the good pizza places are, all the essentials!"

Danny was about to object, but the clone bowled over him. "Great idea! I'd love to get a tour of the town, really see it through, ah, human eyes. And if it helps you trust me, all the better, right Danny?"

It smiled at him, but there was an impish gleam in its eyes.

Danny narrowed his eyes, visibly seething. He was so caught up in hating Phantom at that moment that he missed whatever his dad had just said to him, but Phantom had seemed surprised by it too.

"Uh, sorry, dad, what was that?"

"I said you should be the one to give him a tour! Your mom and I have some numbers to crunch anyway, and it'll be good for you two to get to know each other!"

And so, they were both forcibly guided out the back door and left to stare at each other from opposite sides of the stoop.

Other Phantom looked at him nervously. Danny crossed his arms, frowning. "Well, I hope you're happy."

It actually chuckled. "Actually, yes, I am. Incredibly." When Danny switched to glaring daggers at it, it nervously rubbed the back of its neck with one gloved hand. "Uh, I just mean, they accepted Phantom was... Well maybe not 'good all along', but they're OK with me now, right? Just think about it, Danny, they're accepting your secret identity and you didn't even need to tell them your secret!"

"So, what, your brilliant plan is to lie to my parents?"

The clone crossed his arms. "That's a bit rich from you. I didn't expect you to _thank_ me or anything, but isn't this everything you wanted? I mean, you never have to explain the whole half-ghost thing to your parents! You can— _hey!_ " The ghost yelped as Danny grabbed him— _it_ by the wrist and started dragging it out of the yard. "What are you doing?"

"We're going on a 'tour', Phantom, remember? I'm taking you to Sam and Tucker, and then we're going to decide what to do with you." Danny stopped in the middle of the alley and rounded on his doppelganger. "And don't try anything funny. I feel like my powers are finally coming back, but I'd rather not have to use them on another one of Vlad's pet projects."

"Danny, I'm not going to try anything. Will you just let me..." Phantom jerked his hand out of Danny's grasp. "Listen, I'm not here for Vlad. If he wanted to hurt you there are _much_ easier ways. I came here because... Because I need your help."

Danny stared at him in disbelief. "...you what?"

Phantom frowned, his left hand searching for a word while his right hand rested on his utility belt. "This is going to sound weird, and creepy, and that's because it _is_ weird and creepy. It was Vlad's idea, so I guess it kind of had to be. But when I was cloned, I wasn't just a blank slate. He copied your brain, Danny."

"So?"

"So, I got your personality. Your sense of humor. Most of your memories, I think. Your... Beliefs." The clone had his hands behind his- no, _its_ back, bobbing uncomfortably above the concrete. Whatever it was that it wanted Danny to 'get', he didn't. With a sigh, it continued. "Think about it. If you woke up in a creepy lab with Vlad leering over you, what would you do?"

"I would try to escape, obviously. I'd come back home, regroup, rearm, and then try to stop Vlad from... Oh. _Oh_." The realization struck him like a bolt, and Phantom nodded somberly.

"Exactly. He still can't make half-ghost clones, and he still can't control our minds, but it's only a matter of time before he'll have a perfect replacement for _you_. I need to stop him. And I thought you might want to help." The clone landed on both feet and held out a hand. "So what do you say? Will you come with me and help blow his lab to smithereens?"

He had a determined look in his eye and the set of his jaw. Danny realized with a start this is what other people saw in him.

With so little hesitation it surprised himself, he extended a hand. "Of course I'll help you."

Something flickered over the ghost's expression, and Phantom pulled back slightly. "Wait, before you agree, I need to know... Do you trust me?"

"Listen Phantom, if you wanted to hurt me... You're right, you could have done it before now. I trust you." Danny grinned and took the ghost's hand.

In a second, Phantom suddenly increased the strength of his grip and Danny felt something break the skin on his palm. He shot Phantom a confused look. Without humor, the clone replied. "Good. It's always easier when they trust you. Isn't that right dad?" The ghost looked to one side. Danny followed his gaze as Vlad Plasmius faded into visibility, wearing his semi-permanent creepy smile.

"It certainly is, little badger." Vlad laughed darkly, and Danny felt his pulse quicken; radiating out from his arm he could feel the familiar draining sensation of Skulker's blood blossom extract going to work. "Now then Daniel, how about you come with us?"

He felt the hit to the back of his head, and nothing more.

* * *

For the second time in as many months, Danny awoke upright.

He blinked away the confusion and realized he was strapped down in a containment tube, _probably_ in Vlad's lab. He could only speculate, as the view-port was currently full of Other Phantom's face. It – _definitely_ 'it' – was looking in at him with some concern, fingers curled on the edge of the metal. Danny looked at him with pure hatred, and the clone adopted a hardened expression, turning around and addressing somebody off to the side.

"He's awake."

"I _trusted you_ , you son of a—" Danny was abruptly silenced by an electric shock that stole his breath away. Through watery eyes, he thought he caught a glimpse of Phantom looking vaguely guilty.

"Tut, tut, Daniel!" Vlad-as-Plasmius came into view, shoving the clone away from the small metal prison, so he could leer down at his archenemy. "That's _really_ no way to speak about your mother!"

"What do you want, Vlad? You've already got your creepy little double agent. He really is the perfect son for _you_ , isn't he?"

"Ah, you like my little pawn? He's actually a rather good bishop, I feel; inserting himself into your family, gaining their trust, and lest we forget- capturing _you._ " Vlad's grin widened. Danny legitimately hadn't thought it was possible for the man to look so happy. "Well, that's all well and good, but as a full-ghost, he's still missing something crucial to be an adequate replacement for you. And so, I'm afraid I'll need your mid-morph DNA before we can _properly_ call him my son."

"Hate to disappoint you Plasmius, but I'm not going along with your little scheme."

"I'm afraid, my boy, that you don't have a choice." The ghost held up a remote control, pressing the singular button on it.

Nothing happened.

Grin fading, Vlad tried pressing it again.

And then a few more times.

"...try again Plasmius, I think I felt a tingle that time." Danny laughed heartily before he was shocked into a stunned silence again.

"Dad, I think Skulker may have hit him with too much of the anti-ghost serum. He probably can't shift on his own right now." Phantom made eye contact with Danny, but he was currently too exhausted to guess what it was playing at.

Vlad threw the remote to the ground, turning on Phantom. "Drat, I told that fool not to overdo the dosage."

Phantom nodded sagely. "If you want something done right, you just need to do it yourself. If you disable the security lockout and open the containment tank, I can probably induce a shift in his core myself. We've got the same DNA, after all."

Vlad considered this for a moment. "I believe you may be right. Very good idea, actually. You're already a _clear_ improvement over your predecessors." Phantom smiled at the praise as the elder ghost typed at a keyboard for a moment.

"Security lockdown disengaged, darling. All lab systems now operational!"

Danny cringed. "So you're still using the weird copy of my mom as your PA system. I guess it could always be worse, at least you haven't cloned _her,_ too."

Vlad reared on him again, a wicked smile back in place as the metal and glass separating them lifted away. "It certainly _can_ always get worse for you, Daniel. Once I've perfected my future son, and taken my place as king of both our worlds, I'm afraid we'll have no further use for you at all!"

Danny was about to respond when he saw a white glove pressing a red button on a console.

"Initiating self destruct sequence, my cuddly cheese curd! Lab will detonate in 15 seconds."

Vlad spun around wildly, ending up face to face with Phantom.

Looking back at him down the barrel of a Fenton Thermos.

"Bishop takes King," he said with a triumphant smile. At the press of a button, Vlad was pulled into the thermos screaming, and Phantom capped it. "Checkmate."

Danny couldn't believe what he was seeing, struggling to get his words out over the klaxons. "Phantom... _What_?"

Phantom was pulled out of his temporary moment of victory, running up to Danny, concerned eyes boring into his. "Still trust me?"

Danny didn't, couldn't, respond, just gaping wide-eyed at his clone.

"...fair, but I'm doing this anyway." Phantom grabbed him around the midsection, intangibility washing over them just as the blast hit.

* * *

It was another 10-mile walk back home, although from the other edge of Amity Park this time. Danny wasn't particularly looking forward to it, although he _definitely_ didn't want Phantom too close to him. It had almost been too much being flown out of the scorched pit where Vlad's basement used to be.

The ghost was hovering several feet away and just above Vlad's ruined lawn, avoiding eye contact and holding itself- _himself_ , around the chest awkwardly.

"Phantom... What the _hell_ was that?"

"I... Um..." He glanced at Danny, and immediately looked back down. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you what I was planning. I didn't know how close Vlad was following me."

"You were a _triple agent?!_ "

The ghost smiled nervously. "You're really hung up on me being a traitor to _someone_ , huh?"

Danny knew he should probably still be angry, but he had to work his way through 'confusion' first. "You just turned on Vlad! You just gave up the chance to be human! ...Sort of, anyway. But... _Why?_ "

Phantom wrinkled his nose, floating over to narrow the gap between them. "What I just gave up was being a chess piece. That's not the same as being someone's son, no matter how much the fruitloop thinks otherwise. And besides, that stuff I told you earlier was basically true. We're... Not that different. And I knew I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror if I went along with his plans for personal gain. Not if it meant hurting you. I— Whoa—"

The ghost was cut off abruptly by Danny pulling him into a hug so strong it brought him back down to ground level. After a moment, Phantom returned it, if somewhat hesitantly.

Danny finally broke away, still regarding the clone fondly, who was back to nervously rubbing his neck. "I guess now that that's over with, you can get back to your normal life. I'll just... Let Vlad out in Wisconsin, whenever I get there..."

"Wait, you're leaving?"

"I, uh, kind of assumed you'd want me to. That was the impression I got earlier anyway."

Danny laughed. It started as a chuckle, and turned into something deeper until he had to brace himself on his knees to avoid falling over; like the collected emotions of the last 2 hours were all breaking out at once as joy and relief.

"Uh, Danny? Are you OK?"

"Sorry, no... Sorry." Danny stood upright again, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "I just... This has been a crazy day. But all I know is, anybody crazy enough to do that," he pointed to the pit, " _and_ give up ruling the world, just because it's the right thing to do? They're allowed to call themselves 'Danny Phantom', as far as I'm concerned."

"I... Thank you, Danny. That—" The ghost perked his head up, scanning the obliterated lot around them for the first time. Danny could faintly hear distant sirens over the ringing in his ears. "Those are gonna be here soon, aren't they? We should get out of here."

"We should get back to our parent's place. I think..." Danny concentrated for a moment before white rings surrounded him, and Phantom stood facing Phantom. "I think I might have some explaining to do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to Analog; while going through the archives to find the originals for this anthology, I found a file with a name I could not account for. Reading the notes I had written at the time, I realized it was actually the original version of Chapter 4, "signal", written from the prompt "Danny doesn't trust full-ghost clone."
> 
> In its original form, there were just a few too many twists and turns for what I thought the anthology needed. The draft was abandoned at about 60% completion and the concept was reworked entirely into a much less... Intrigue-laced version.
> 
> In any event, I've finished up the incomplete draft as initially conceived, and here it is as a small bonus. If I had one criticism of my own already-abandoned plot (besides being too twisty), it would be that Danny spends most of his time reacting to what Phantom is doing, rather than being an active participant. He's kind of Watson-ing in this chapter, to coin a phrase. Ah well. I could have reworked it some more, but we might have just ended up with Chapter 4 again.


	7. anti-aliasing

**anti-aliasing  
** _n._ a technique that smooths out the jagged edges caused by a high-contrast boundary

 _see_ _also_ **alias**

* * *

Danny hadn't stood still for the last 10 minutes.

Back and forth, between the window and the door. Sometimes he'd expand the circuit and walk over to the desk where his ghostly clone was gently floating, arms crossed, observing. Danny would try to say something, no noise would come out, and then he'd go back to walking around the room. Back and forth, up and down, with the _clack-click_ of Danny Phantom's boots on the hardwood. Every 40 seconds or so there was a hollow "thunk" when he stepped on the loose floorboard over by the closet.

Frankly, watching Danny go around in circles was making Phantom nauseous.

In theory, they were brainstorming. How do you tell Danny's parents that their son was half-ghost, they'd been hunting him all along, and _oh by the way_...

Phantom sighed, and Danny finally stopped pacing, green eyes looking back at his own.

"Was that the sound of you getting an idea?"

"Not really, no."

Danny ran a hand back through his hair, making a bad situation worse. "I will take _anything_ at this point."

"Ok, fine. I'm still just _fully in favor_ of not telling them anything at all. There, how's that?"

"...Is it too late to say I changed my mind on the 'anything'? C'mon, we can't lie to them _forever._ "

"Danny, as your 15-day-old clone, I've been lying to them for literally my entire existence. It's practically all I ever did before I talked to you. And I'm actually really good at it, so, yes, I think I probably _could_ lie to them forever."

"Well I can't." Danny crossed his own arms, matching the clone's standoffish posturing.

Phantom rolled his eyes. "That sounds like more of a 'you' problem." That got Danny sputtering with something like indignation and he had to bite back laughter. "I don't get why this is so important to you. It's like I said before, your mom and dad have accepted Phantom is good, they aren't going to hunt us, _and_ you can keep pretending to be fully human around them. It's the best deal that doesn't involve anyone getting hurt."

"Anyone finding out the truth, you mean."

"Call it what you want, man. The truth hurts. Even as the 'full-ghost' here I really don't want to see them freak out when you... Do your changing thing. 'Go ghost.' Whatever."

Danny fiddled with a glove nervously. "You... You think they'll freak out more about that?" A pair of white rings split and traveled over him, leaving the human Danny picking nervously at his wristwatch. "I've been kind of thinking maybe we should both go down as Phantom and _then_ tell them."

Phantom leveled an exasperated expression at his human counterpart. This boy was going to be the death of him.

* * *

The twin Phantoms made their way down to the lab, where Danny's parents were busily hammering away at their latest project. It was mostly obscured by a sheet, leaving only its massive scale visible.

That, and the bundles of massive electrical cables it seemed to require, snaking toward the towering monolith in the middle of the room from every wall. Whatever it was, it required _serious power_. Danny walked down the last few stairs and Phantom followed close behind, waiting for either of the scientists to notice them.

Maddie noticed first. She did a double-take, and then nearly jumped when she realized they were there with an "Oh!"

"What's up?" Jack appeared from under the sheet, extinguishing his torch and flipping his goggles up when he saw them. "Phantom! It's _you_. Since when can you duplicate?"

Danny stammered out a whole lot of nothing before his speech fizzled out and he nervously clutched at the back of his neck. Realizing his original had no idea what he was doing, Phantom put a comforting hand on his shoulder and floated around his side. "Um, Jack, Maddie, there's something I really need to tell you."

Two Phantoms were making them nervous. He could tell, the way Maddie's hand inched toward her sidearm in its holster, and the unease as she asked, "Does there need to be two of you for this? What are you going to tell us?"

"That's the thing, there's always been two of us. You see, I'm not the real Danny Phantom. He is. He's also your son, Danny Fenton." Next to him, Danny transformed back into his human form with a timid wave. "I'm actually a clone of Danny Phantom made by a literal evil genius and I was sent here to infiltrate your family and capture your son. But Danny forgave me for that and wants me to live with you now. Is that OK with you?"

They wasted no time. Maddie knocked Phantom to the ground, holding him at gunpoint with her boot pressed firmly on his chest and the charging ectogun at his temple. He struggled to turn his head to see Danny, who Jack had tied up on the ground with Fenton fishing line, before pulling the sheet off their latest invention.

It looked like an enormous, ceiling-spanning electrode out of a black-and-white horror movie but it glowed with sinister green energy. Jack correctly read the fear in his son's face and grinned maniacally. "That's right, impostor! This is the Fenton... Ghost extractor... Thing. I'm working on the name, but it doesn't really matter. It's going to tear your ghostly energy right out of my real, human son!"

Jack threw a lever and an arc of electricity shot out of the end of the device, shocking Danny on the ground. Over his screams, he shouted at Maddie; "Back away from the _other_ impostor, I'm going to shoot him with this enormous bazooka thing!" He hefted the weapon onto his shoulder, and—

"Wait, wait, wait," Danny cut in, interrupting Phantom mid-sentence, "you think our dad would shoot you when we tell him?"

Phantom turned to face Danny, surprised, still 'holding' a mimed bazooka. "Huh? Oh, uh, I mean probably? It's not impossible."

"You're talking about the same man who cried at the theater when the dog died in The Amityville Horror?"

"Yeah, the _ghost hunter Jack Fenton._ "

"Come on, they're not going to attack us. Weren't you the one just saying they trust Phantom?"

"They _think_ they trust Phantom, but they also think Phantom is telling them the truth. That's going to change when they find out what's really happening." Danny didn't seem to really buy it, and Phantom just about threw up his hands in exasperation. "Danny, you already knew half the secret and your first instinct was to call me Vlad's 'creepy double agent', do y'see how that might be a problem?"

"No! We're going to tell them the whole story, not just dump all the worst parts on them like that. And they're still our parents. We're still their son. ...Sons. That won't change."

"And you're still literally a family of ghost hunters."

"I'm telling you, I'm not worried about them _hunting_ me, not really, it's more like... It'll be weird, right? Like knowing how Danny Phantom was uh, born, it'll change how they look at me."

"It'll change _everything_. You realize they're probably going to blame themselves, right?"

"...Do you really think they'll blame themselves for me becoming Phantom? I mean, they weren't even home when the portal turned on, and they thought it wouldn't work..." Danny was back to picking at his wristwatch strap, and then a blinding light left him picking at his spectral white gloves. "Should I start off in ghost form after all, and then turn human, maybe?"

Phantom crossed his arms, leaning back into the desk. "I didn't even _think_ of the fact that their portal is what made you a half-ghost. I was thinking more about all the times they shot at you or trapped you. But yeah, they'll probably blame themselves for that too. They almost killed their son, that's going to be heavy."

Danny groaned, burying his face in his hands, and returned to pacing aimlessly for a while. He ended up facing the wall with his fingers threaded behind his neck; when Danny finally spoke up again, Phantom could barely hear a word he was saying. "It's going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine. But they have a right to know what's really going on."

* * *

Danny Fenton walked down the stairs, pausing at the landing to call out to his parents. "Hey, mom, dad, do you have a minute?"

They both looked up from their papers. His mom smiled brightly. "Of course honey, we can always make time for you."

His dad added, "how'd it go with Phantom earlier anyway?"

"That's actually what I'm here to talk to you guys about." Danny turned back up the stairs, beckoning the ghost down. "We've got something we want to talk about with you."

"'We'?" Mom sounded confused, tilting her head to one side as Phantom nervously came into view. "What's this about, sweetie?"

"Um, well it's actually sort of about where Phantom came from... _Our_ Phantom, he's actually a clone of the other Danny Phantom."

"Wait a minute son," his dad interjected, "how can a ghost have a clone? How did any of this happen?"

"Well, uh, an evil ghost called Plasmius wanted to take over the world, so he created a clone to be his minion. But he isn't evil, so as soon as Plasmius left him alone, he came straight to us so we could work together and bring him down."

Phantom blushed a little, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "It just seemed like the right thing to do. We actually captured him, he's in this thermos here..." The ghost held the thermos out, and his mom took it tentatively.

"Thanks, Phantom, but why did Danny help you catch _this_ ghost?"

Danny patted the ghost on the back. "I'll tell them, don't worry- Y'see, I've actually been hunting ghosts myself for almost a year now, and... Well... I've been hiding a lot of stuff from you."

The blinding white ring snapped into existence over his waist, splitting and transforming him into his ghostly alter-ego. "I'm the original Danny Phantom. This Phantom is a clone of my ghost half."

Jack collapsed back into the chair behind him with a heavy thunk, not able to believe his eyes. Maddie crossed the room in a heartbeat and stooped down to look at him more closely, holding onto him by the shoulders. There were tears in her eyes.

"Oh, Danny, I'm so sorry you didn't feel like you could tell us all of this... After all the horrible things we said about Phantom!" She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him closer. "Don't worry... We're going to fix this... We'll cure you..."

Danny's pulse quickened, and he stammered nervously. "Um, b-but... You don't _need_ to fix anything, it's all OK! I'm still your son, right?"

His mother broke away from the tight hug. Resolve was replacing the tears in her eyes. "Yes, of course, and that's why we need to fix your ghost problem. We caused it, now we need to fix it."

The whole room felt too tall and too narrow. He looked to his dad, but the man just sat at the bench, silently, with his head in his hands.

"Yeah, that's another distinct possibility," Phantom commented, as though they'd been talking about the weather.

...there was no way _he_ was this tone-deaf too, was there? Danny groaned and flopped back on his bed, staring at the ceiling until he could trust himself to respond. "Thanks, Phantom, I'm so glad we had this talk."

"Listen, if even _you_ think it's going to go that badly... I really, genuinely don't think it's necessary _at all_. What we've got isn't perfect, but it's enough for me. So why risk all that? Why do you even want to tell them?"

"I don't _actually_ think it'll be that bad, obviously. It'll probably be fine. You just... Got in my head."

"Actually, you got into my head. It's all the same up to two weeks ago. So what does that tell you?"

"The point is, that's not how I want it to go at all. There's got to be some way to do this _right_."

Danny heard Phantom's sarcastic laugh and gave him _A Look_ in response. Phantom just rolled his eyes. "We both know how you _want_ it to go."

* * *

Danny and Phantom made their way down the stairs and into the kitchen, where both their loving parents were already waiting for them with excited smiles on their faces.

They were both surprised. They'd come down here to talk, but they hadn't expected mom and dad to have something to tell _them_ first.

"Hey, Danny! And Phantom!" Jack said, "we have some great news for you!"

Danny's mom wrapped him up in a hug. "We realized that you're Danny Phantom, so we've decided we're going to give up ghost hunting forever! You'll be safer if you don't have to worry about ghosts either, so we've bricked up the ghost portal and filled the basement with concrete."

"Gee mom, that sure is terrific. I was worried you'd be upset about any of this!" Danny smiled and pulled Phantom into the hug.

"Great ghosts! We almost forgot." Jack laughed heartily and pulled some papers out of an official-looking envelope on the table. "We're officially adopting Phantom! Welcome to the family, son!"

Jack grabbed Phantom around the shoulders and pulled him into a hug of his own, laughing joyously.

The back door opened and Jazz came in, holding two bags of takeout from a local Mexican restaurant. "Hey everyone, I brought fajitas!"

"...Why does Jazz have fajitas?" Danny sat up on the bed, looking at Phantom quizzically.

"I _like_ fajitas; don't interrupt me. Now, after dinner, we'll all go to the carnival—"

"Come on man, can't you take this like, at least a little bit seriously?"

" _I'm_ not taking it seriously?" Phantom launched himself away from the desk, staring hard at his doppelganger. "Danny, you've spent the last half hour worrying about whether to show up in human or ghost form. As if _that's_ going to make all the difference. As if you were the one who is the big fraud, the one who was cooked up to betray them by the fruit-loop they still think is their friend. As if they aren't always going to accept _you_ , because of the two of us you're the only one who's actually their son, and not some kind of... science experiment _f_ _reak_."

Phantom punctuated the sentence by kicking Danny's chair, which rolled to a pitiful stop against Danny's legs. It had been in the way of him walking over to the window, and Phantom was planning to stand there and stare outside until he could look at Danny Fenton in the eyes again. It might be a while.

It was hard enough to remind one person about all that. And he'd just saved Fenton's life, so Danny _had_ to give Phantom some trust. He'd never get that from Jack and Maddie if they knew who he really was.

The double agent. The chess piece. The psychopath's _perfect son_. He—

He was grabbed roughly by the shoulders, and Danny spun him around, before wrapping Phantom in a tight hug. It was for the best his arms were pinned to his sides. Otherwise, he would have had no idea what to do with them.

"Uh, Danny? What're you doing?"

"Don't you ever, ever think that again. You're not."

Phantom attempted to push the teen away from him, but Danny tightened his arms into an iron grip. A friendly reminder that even though his arms looked like noodles, Danny hunted ghosts in his spare time; although Phantom doubted any of them got hugs. "What else do you call it when you're born and raised in a tube? I'm basically just like that sheep in Scotland they talk about in Biology. Hell, maybe I'll be in the textbooks next. 'Local crazy person clones perfect son', it'll be a real teachable moment."

Danny finally let go of him but held him at arm's length. The human actually looked pissed-off at Vlad on his behalf, which was nice. "He did an awful job of that. You're not the perfect son."

"Um... Thanks?"

"No, I don't mean like..." Danny waved it off. "Let me try that again. What's Vlad's favorite flavor of ice cream?"

"...what does that have to do with anything?"

"What's dad's favorite?"

"Peanut butter and banana, but ice cream has nothing to do—"

"When's Vlad's birthday?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

"What did we get mom for her birthday?"

"You got her that book on evolutionary history she'd been looking at in the mall. Seriously, what are you getting at here Fenton?"

He looked as pleased with himself as Phantom probably looked annoyed. "Kinda sounds like you're Jack and Maddie Fenton's son, not Vlad's."

Phantom shoved him away with more force than was strictly necessary and returned to moping by the window. "That's a cute idea, it's a real shame reality is a little more complicated."

"What else is there?" It sounded like Danny had backed away from him.

It was for the best; all Phantom had done was lash out, verbally and physically. He didn't know how to be around people. Of course he didn't, how could he? "I'm not the real Phantom, Danny! I'm a fake version of you! And you seem to keep forgetting..."

Phantom finally turned to face him and found his sentence stolen from his throat. Whatever well of confidence Danny had been trying to draw from, it didn't look like it was still working. He was slumped on the side of the bed, hands clasped, staring at the floor.

After a moment's hesitation, he approached the bed. Danny sent him an awkward glance and he stopped mid-stride. Was Fenton afraid of him getting violent or something? Or had he finally given up? Phantom frowned a bit and sat on the floor, settling for "near-ish", arms wrapped around his legs.

He didn't want Danny to feel as tired as he looked. But he didn't want him chasing impossible dreams, either.

On the other hand, maybe he'd read Danny wrong. The half-ghost glanced at him again, sitting curled in on himself on the ground, and gave a weak chuckle. "Come on, man, don't look so... Dejected _._ In case you forgot, _you're_ the Phantom they like. Who's the fake? The one they've already accepted, or the one who's been secretly living under their roof this whole time?"

Ok, so he _had_ read Danny wrong. Who was feeling sorry for who here anyway? "You're not fake, Danny, you were just... They were intense. It was scary to think about."

"It wasn't just scary. Movies are 'scary', I was actually living with it. And I can't live in fear anymore." Danny looked up and met Phantom with eyes that glowed green, bright, and determined. "And, you deserve to be where you really belong. Part of a real family."

His core stuttered a bit in his chest. He knew, of course, that Danny Phantom had an annoying habit of getting people to reach out of their comfort zone, but... "But, I'm not like you. I'm just a ghost. I can't be part of a human family."

Wordlessly, Danny slid off the bed and scooted across the floor to be next to him. Phantom's whole spine stiffened as he was pulled by his shoulder into Danny's side; he held him there for a moment before he finally spoke up again. "But you're part of _this_ family. It's already not a human family, if you think I'm still in it. And as long as you want to be a part of it, you're a brother to me, no matter what anyone else says. Ok?"

Phantom sniffed and realized there were tears on his face. He didn't know how they got there, honestly, and he tried to wipe them away. Danny gave his shoulder a little questioning squeeze and Phantom nodded to indicate that yes, he did want that. He would always want that. Very much.

Danny seemed to get it. After a few moments, when there were fewer tears on his face, and he could loosen up a bit against Fenton's side, Phantom finally found his voice again. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

"You're welcome. We..." At the pause, Phantom snuck a glance at Danny. He was looking up at the ceiling like he was pulling his thoughts out of the attic. "We both deserve better than living a lie."

It was a nice idea. Living honestly. Well, "nice idea" undersold it. What it _was_ , was everything they'd ever wanted; since first the day Danny walked into that portal and then the day Phantom had first opened his eyes in Vlad's laboratory. Everything they'd wanted, and everything they'd feared.

It was so much that he had been scared to dream it could be possible.

But Fenton was right.

If they didn't try, he'd never know.

"Ok." Danny seemed surprised that Phantom said that. _Phantom_ was surprised that Phantom said that. He repeated it as much for himself as Danny. "Ok, we'll do it. We'll do it right. So, what's the plan?"

* * *

Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom walked down the stairs to the lab to the sound of a welding torch. Their mom was working on something in a far corner, and they had to look away from it to avoid the flash. Their dad noticed them first, looking up from his papers, his eyes alight with excitement; after that morning, he was probably happy to see them still together and not arguing.

"Welcome back, Dann-o! How'd the tour go with the ghost kid?"

Danny exchanged a look with Phantom, grinning at the ghost. "Really well actually."

"We even got some ghost hunting in," Phantom added, giving his Fenton Thermos a little shake for emphasis.

"Hey, would you look at that! You got my boy interested in the family business!" Jack got up and closed the distance between them, managing to aggressively tousle two heads of hair at once, before he stooped down to their eye level. "So, any questions about human society, Phantom?"

Phantom chuckled a bit. "Nothing too major. But first, we actually have something we want to tell you guys."

"What's that?"

"Um, I'd really rather only say this once," Danny said, hand rubbing the back of his neck, "maybe we should wait until mom is done over there?"

Maddie perked up a bit and shut off the torch. "Sorry, what was that?"

"We've got something we want to say," Phantom repeated.

"Sure thing, we've got a moment." She made her way over to them, standing next to Jack with a hand on his shoulder.

Phantom glanced at Danny. His eyes were asking him to take the lead, which the teen did with a nervous chuckle. "Well, the thing is, I actually _have_ been hunting ghosts... For a while now, actually."

"Oh?" his mother sounded uneasy, shifting on her feet. "You really should have told us, it's not safe without the proper training. You haven't been hurt, have you?"

"Well... Nothing too bad." He saw both their faces darken, and quickly added, "Honestly, it's nothing I've had to go to the hospital for or whatever." At his side, Phantom turned to face him with a raised eyebrow, but Danny would be quick to point out it wasn't technically a lie. Technically.

"Wait a minute Dann-o, how long have you been at this?" Jack asked.

"...about a year?"

"What!" Danny flinched at the twin outburst, followed up by an overlapping "Why haven't we ever seen you at a ghost sighting?" and "Is that why you acted like you had a history with Phantom?"

Phantom cut in, to Danny's relief, because he had talked himself into a bit of a corner there. "That's the other half of what we're here to say, actually. This may sound a bit hard to believe, but I'm not actually the original Danny Phantom."

The Fenton parents were stunned into silence at that. Maddie broke the silence first. "The 'original'? What do you mean by that?"

"I'm actually a clone of the _original_ Danny Phantom. It's a long story, but, uh, Danny can vouch for the fact that I'm still... Good."

"At least as good as the original. And probably better at planning." Danny chuckled.

Jack frowned a bit. "You both sound like you're pretty familiar with this 'original' ghost kid. Where's he in all this?"

"Um... About that..." Danny knew he would have to get to that part, and that was why it was good he'd come up with a really awesome way to answer that question. As soon as he remembered what it was. Phantom grabbed him on the shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

After a careful exhale, Danny continued. "When I turned on the ghost portal, it, uh, zapped me with a bunch of ecto-whatever," he explained with a handwave, "which you'll know more about than me anyway, but... When I came out, I had all these, um, abilities?"

"What... Kind of abilities?" his mom asked, cautiously.

" _Ghost_ abilities. I could fly and stuff. Turn invisible. Shoot ghost rays. That kind of stuff." He could tell his parents wanted to interrupt and ask a million questions, so it was important to just keep talking until the whole truth was out. "And I could also transform to look more like a ghost, or turn back to looking like a human. I'm sort of half-ghost, half-human, and uh, when I fight ghosts in public, I'm usually disguised as..."

He glanced again at Phantom, who nodded encouragingly.

" _I'm_ Danny Phantom."

His parents were stunned into silence for a moment. The stunned silence stretched into an awkward silence, but of course, Jack Fenton's inquisitive nature would win out.

"...can we see that?"

"You really want to see me transform into a ghost?" Danny asked, surprised.

"Of course they will," Phantom replied.

"Of course we do," his parents echoed.

Danny smiled and nodded. "Ok, then. I can do that." He pumped both fists into the air.

They could totally do this.

"We _can_ totally do this!" Phantom practically shouted, standing abruptly.

Danny hadn't seen him look so happy all afternoon. Or maybe ever. The grin was infectious and he was smiling too, even when Phantom picked him up off his bedroom floor by the shoulders and spun him around.

"Ok, Phantom, I'm getting kinda dizzy now..."

The ghost looked sheepish as he set Danny back down on the ground with a _click-clack_ of his boots on the hardwood. "Sorry. It's just... This might actually work!"

He laughed. "Of course it's going to work. It's _perfect_." They exchanged fond smiles as Danny let the transformation wash over him, blue eyes meeting green.

On his right, a coffee mug shattered.

Danny's head whipped to the door of his bedroom, which at some point had been opened. The doorway was instead filled by his parents, who were staring at him in shell-shocked disbelief, coffee and broken porcelain flowing over the floorboards under his mom's outstretched hand.

On his left, Phantom cleared his throat.

"Um... We've got something we want to tell you guys," he began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The above comes with a "thank you" to Dp-Marvel94, for assuring me the concept was sound, in a moment of doubt late on a Wednesday night.
> 
> As for the execution, well. Normally I thrill in ambiguous referents, but even for me (semi-specialized as I am in stories about Danny talking to himself), this was beyond the pale. It's a story of syntactical relationships as much as familial, but hopefully it was easy to follow. Or at least, easy enough.
> 
> Regardless, that is now the renewed conclusion to Analog. If you've made it this far, I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Until next time!


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